


The Devil in Dead Horse

by Jane Elliot (JaneElliot), JaneElliot



Series: End of the Trail [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Dark, Gunslingers, Kid Fic, M/M, Previously Published, Violence, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 66,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22422856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneElliot/pseuds/Jane%20Elliot, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneElliot/pseuds/JaneElliot
Summary: Will and John head back to visit the ranch and find an enemy from John's past has taken over their town.(Inspired by The Quick and the Dead.  Proceed with caution.)
Relationships: Will Connors/John Anderson
Series: End of the Trail [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1436536
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

"Here it is," Billy said as he and his two best friends scurried up to the side of a carriage house. It was a more graceful and elegant carriage house than most, as befitted the classy neighborhood and shiny new windows dotted the side of the wall.

The three boys looked around furtively, ensuring that no one was in the alley or the bright green yard between the mansion and the carriage house before inching up carefully to peer into the nearest window.

"Wow," Joey breathed.

"It's so shiny," Tim said in awe. "I've never seen a wagon that shiny."

"It's not a wagon, dummy," Billy said. "It's an Olds-mo-bile. An Olds-mo-bile Cut Dash."

"Where's the steam come out?" Joey asked.

"It doesn't run on steam. Automobiles use pe-trol-e-um."

"What's that?" Tim asked.

Billy shook his head. Tim was a year younger than Billy and Joey and was so very stupid sometimes. "It's what cars run on."

Tim looked very unsatisfied with this answer, but Joey cut in quickly. "There's no cover; what do they do if it rains?"

Billy opened his mouth and closed it again, peering more intently into the window.

A deep voice answered. "See that cloth in the back? That's the roof."

All three boys twirled around and jumped back, startled at the sight of the tall, well-dressed man standing behind them. The man looked tired, with dark circles under his green eyes, but he was smiling. Arrayed at his feet were a suitcase and a valise. "Mr. Connors!" Billy yelped.

"Hello, Billy," Will Connors said. "I see you're showing off Charles's latest toy. Which actually runs on gasoline, I believe."

Billy looked down with a credible attempt at remorse. "I'm sorry, Mr. Connors."

"No need to apologize. Charles would be thrilled to know that you like it; I'm afraid I haven't been showing the proper enthusiasm." Will leaned in and added in an undertone. "In fact, I bet if you asked, he'd take you and your friends for a ride."

All three boys' eyes widened and Will's smile grew a hair less tired. They looked like nothing so much as three very eager hounds that had just caught a scent. "Really?" Billy breathed.

"Really," Will promised. "Not today, though; it's almost time for you and your mom to go home."

Billy and the other two looked like their world had just come to an end. Will smothered a laugh. "Tell you what. If you three help me bring my luggage in, I'll talk to Charles about taking you out in the automobile."

The three boys lunged towards the bags and there was a bit of a scuffle over who would carry what. In the end, Billy carried the valise and the other two awkwardly tried to share the burden of the suitcase. All three trotted up the lawn in the direction of the house.

Will shook his head and followed at a more sedate pace that masked his slight limp. Halfway up the lawn he paused to check in on the chickens and their ridiculously overblown coop. It appeared that John had been busy while Will was away: the castle had a fifth turret now and the fence that surrounded the pen had been painted in dual shades of blue to match the chicken castle, the human house, and the carriage house that John had taken to calling the 'garage' after hearing that the French were using the word for buildings that housed automobiles.

Admittedly, the turrets did serve a purpose: each one was a long-term feeder that slowly let out grain as the chickens consumed it. Each turret could hold about a day and a half's worth of feed and with five they would only need to be filled once a week. John was thinking of patenting the design. Will was outwardly supportive of the idea while inwardly doubting that there would ever be much call for chicken castles.

Still, the chickens seemed to like their home well enough and produced a prodigious number of eggs; most of the cooks in the neighborhood made it to their back door during the week to borrow a few. The resulting elevation in the status of their own cook kept her in a good mood, which made life easier for everyone involved, so the chickens would keep their coop. Will just had to keep a sharp eye out for any indications that a moat or portcullis was in the works; John had already hinted in that direction a few times and had to be distracted by a few mutually satisfying diversions.

Will was looking forward to a few diversions tonight; as much as he loved seeing his son, it was hard being away from John for a week. After the revelations of this latest trip Will was especially in need of some comforting and he was seriously contemplating sending the servants home early when he stepped into the house and was promptly informed that "Mr. Merriweather" was out and wasn't expected back until the evening. Will sighed and thanked Mrs. Bowden, adding a request that she try and curb Billy's tendency to snoop before dismissing her back to her duties. 

Essentials taken care of, he made his way up to his room and stretched out on his rarely used bed. He hadn't slept well the night before and was in desperate need of a nap.

By the time he awoke, it was evening and the house was blessedly silent. Servants were a necessity in a residence this size and there would have been serious questions raised if he and John had eschewed them entirely, but Will had to admit that he sometimes missed the days when it was just him and John in Will's old cabin.

Will frowned at the ceiling and chastised himself for being maudlin. He loved Boston and he loved his house. He loved that he could send a letter to his son and get a reply back two days later. He loved that he could visit his publisher in person any time he wanted and that his books were top sellers at the local bookstore. He loved the fine bed he and John slept in, and he loved that supplies were just as easily obtained in the winter as in the summer.

Truth was, he was a little down after hearing Tommy's news and feeling nostalgic. He wouldn't give up his current life for anything, but sometimes he wished he could visit his old ranch, to see with his own eyes how it was faring. The periodic reports from Mrs. Potter helped, but even they had dried up in the last few months. Will was prone to worrying about the silence but, as John pointed out, there wasn't much he could do from Boston. Chances were she'd just been a little overwhelmed by the calving and branding this year; they were always a challenge even when not mixed with a school of untrained youngsters.

Determinedly putting Mrs. Potter and the ranch out of his mind, Will went downstairs to explore what Mrs. Dora had prepared for supper. 

He was just finishing up a bowl of excellent stew when John came in. Will jumped to his feet and was already opening his arms for an embrace when John said gruffly, "Not yet," and kept on going in the direction of the stairs. Will caught a whiff of perfume as John strode past and his heart sank.

Ten minutes later, John came back down with damp hair and fresh clothes. This time he immediately pulled Will up into a hard embrace and Will gripped back just as tightly. "While I was gone, John?"

John heaved a sigh and buried his face in Will's neck. "You know I hate coming to you with their smell on me."

"So you decided to take advantage of my absence." Will sighed as well. "I'm sorry."

John chuffed out a laugh. "Don't apologize for the world we live in. At least I'm old enough no one expects me to sleep with them and in a few more years I can skip 'em altogether." He stood back and ran his eyes over Will's face for a few seconds. "I did miss you," he murmured, leaning in for a gentle kiss.

"I missed you, too," Will answered softly, and stole a kiss of his own. Reluctantly, he stepped back. "Come on and have something to eat, because once we go upstairs you aren't coming down until tomorrow."

John brightened and his steps were much lighter as he went to the stove. "So how's Tommy doing?" he asked as he spooned up some stew.

"You mean 'Tom'?" Will asked dryly. John just waved a spoon at him. "He's fine. And –" Will took a deep breath. "And he's going to Cambridge."

"Damn," John breathed, sitting down next to Will and holding out his hand. Will took it without hesitation and held on with all his might.

"It's not like I wasn't expecting it," he said tightly.

"There's a world of difference between expecting something and having it actually happen," John pointed out. He squeezed Will's hand, then let go to start in on his dinner.

Will gave him a minute before adding, "What I wasn't expecting was for him to take a holiday in Canada before he left. Only he's calling it a vacation, whatever that is."

John growled under his breath and, despite himself, Will found himself smiling. "Stop that," he said fondly.

"He's being selfish." John pushed his bowl away and scooted his chair over so that he could touch Will without stretching. "Why does he need a trip to Canada when he's going to England in just a few months?"

"Because he's a teenage boy with a sense of adventure," Will said. "Just like his old man was when he was a boy."

John harrumphed, and wrapped an arm around Will in answer. Will reveled in the sensation; it wasn't as if either of them withheld affection, but they were always more inclined to touching after being apart for a while.

"We should take a vacation," John said out of nowhere, using the new word with obvious relish. "Get out of the city for a few days. Maybe a week."

Will considered that. "Tommy's going to be gone for at least a month, maybe more."

"A month, then," John said. "At least. Might do that boy some good to have to wait for your letters for once. And we can do a lot in a month. Maybe go to San Francisco, or Yellowstone Park."

Will rolled his eyes at John but he could see the appeal of going out West. "Maybe we could stop in at the ranch," he offered hopefully, though it was nowhere in the vicinity of either San Francisco or the park. "Check in on Mrs. Potter."

"We could do that," John agreed.

That had been easier than Will had anticipated; clearly John had been worrying, too, no matter how much he said otherwise. "We'll have to be careful, though," Will pointed out. "John Anderson's still wanted out there."

"I'm still wanted everywhere," John said airily. Still, he didn't argue when Will started planning what they could do to minimize the risk of John getting caught. It made their plans far more complicated, but Will found himself caught up in John's enthusiasm and they ended up talking about the trip late into the night, with one extended, very pleasurable interlude.


	2. Chapter 2

Though the decision to undertake the trip had been spur of the moment, both Will and John found themselves alight with anticipation for the upcoming adventure and any obstacles were quickly overcome. Will's publisher was placated with the promise of renewed inspiration that the trip would surely provide, John's hangers-on were given some justification for the wandering ways that were the explanation of how John's 'Charles Merriweather' persona could be a wealthy man that no one had ever heard of, and Tommy's guilt about his vacation, if it really existed and wasn't a product of Will's hopeful imagination, was assuaged. 

The first true argument came when they discussed horses. Will had given his old horse to his late wife's family; partially as a thank you for the horse they'd given him and Molly when they moved west and partially as a reward to a elderly, hard-working ranch horse who deserved a life where the most difficult thing he was asked to do was to carry a few children and who wanted nothing more than endless fields of green. John wouldn't give up Old Faithful for love or money, but he'd been putting her to stud for the last few years and she'd foaled only a couple of months before. "Old Faithful gets irritable when you take her away from her foal," Will reminded John. When John didn't look convinced, he added, "Didn't she bite you last time you tried to take her out for a ride?"

John scowled. "What about Clever Girl?"

"Is she even broke to saddle yet?"

"She's just about ready. She'll be quick to learn."

Will considered the horse in question, who was prancing about the paddock in front of John, clearly angling for a sugar cube. Clever Girl, Old Faithful's oldest offspring, was a beautiful animal and strong for her age, but she was only two years old and she'd been shamelessly spoiled by John. "Maybe so," Will finally said. "But she's going to hate going cross-country on a train." _And she'll make you regret it_ , he added to himself.

John didn't look convinced. Fortunately, no matter how besotted he was by his horses, John could be practical when necessary and once Will sweetened the pot by offering to take the train to Omaha, where the world's largest horse market was located, they managed to come to an accord.

Negotiations complete, all that was left was to pack their bags and before Will had fully grasped that he was going on his first ever vacation, they were on the steamer boat to New York City. From there they made their way to the Pennsylvania Central Railroad in Jersey City, which had a direct line to St. Louis.

Trains had improved immensely since the last time they had traveled on them. John was most pleased with the private first class sleeping carriages and the full-service dining rooms, while Will wanted to spend most of his time in the observatory car staring at the passing scenery. Will's favorite improvement, however, were the vestibules between cars: in the past when he'd had to go from car to car, he'd had to have John's help for the jump over the coupling. Now he could walk between them with ease.

Once night fell the observatory car lost most of its appeal, and Will wandered back to his and John's room. There he found John watching in fascination as the porter converted the berth's padded seats into a narrow bed and then lowered a second bunk from the ceiling halfway down the wall. He completed the setup with a ladder that hooked on the end of the top bunk.

"That's amazing," John said as he inspected the beds. "Who invented it?"

"I'm afraid I don't know, sir," the porter said, holding out his hand. John gave the man a generous tip, then followed him right out of the room, peppering him with more questions. Will shook his head and pulled his book out of his luggage. With the help of the pillow from the top bunk, he managed to get somewhat comfortable on the tiny bench that was the room's lone remaining seat and soon he was in the midst of schoolboy antics as described by a gentleman named Wodehouse. John had gotten the book for Will while Tommy was considering going to school in England, on the basis that the book was written by an Englishman and it was about English schoolboys. Frankly, if what occurred in the book was anything at all like the actual schools, Will couldn't imagine how any education occurred at all.

Giving up on the tome, Will instead turned his attention to the window, only to find that with night fallen the glass had turned into a mirror, reflecting back the contents of the room. He was quite grateful when the door opened and John stepped through, and Will's opinion of both the train and of the evening immediately improved as John turned the latch on the door. "The porter said we won't be disturbed for the rest of the night."

"Did he now?" Will asked with a grin, pushing himself to his feet and stalking forward…

…only to come to a stop when John held up a finger. "What?"

"When was the last time you did your gymnastics?"

Will groaned. "Really? We're on a vacation!"

"A vacation that starts with three weeks of riding."

"Damn it." Will sighed, but got down on the floor. "You're helping."

John smiled.

It took some doing for Will to find enough space to lay flat in the tiny berth, but they managed and before Will was really ready he had his bad leg folded up to his chest, with John pressing down just below the knee to increase the stretch. "You didn't stretch at all during your visit to Tommy, did you?" John asked. Will figured his grunt of pain was answer enough.

The next ten minutes were less than pleasant, as Will's neglected muscles sharply protested the treatment. When they finally finished he was covered with a thin sheen of sweat. "This was not what I was expecting when you locked the door," he grumbled as he lifted himself just enough to twist in the tiny room and sit on the bed.

John lifted himself off the floor with his usual easy grace. "I'm not through with you yet."

Will's trousers immediately felt tighter. "Oh."

"Lights off or blinds down?"

Will shivered with anticipation; the bed may be more comfortable in Boston, but they always had to have the blinds down. "Light off."

John grinned and moved to turn the light off. A moment later the window blind went up, letting in a trickle of moonlight. In the twilight, John was a tall, hulking shape as he stepped close to the bed and knelt on the floor between Will's spread legs. Will gasped as he felt two hot hands grasp his thighs and spread him wider still. 

Practiced fingers unbuttoned Will's fly and he brought his hands up to stroke John's hair as wet heat engulfed his cock. He immediately tried to thrust up, but they'd danced this dance for years now and John's hands were already at Will's hips, holding him down so he could enjoy himself without worrying about controlling his thrusts. Will returned the favor, running his nails over John's scalp and feeling a thrill at the way John moaned in pleasure as his head bobbed.

When Will started getting too close he tightened his hands, grabbing fists of John's hair. John immediately stopped and leaned back. "Get undressed," John said and the raspy, hoarse note to his voice went straight to Will's crotch.

They undressed in record time, watching each other in the dim moonlight. Will finished first and was about to get on the bunk, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He watched as John slid in instead, pressing his back tightly against the wall, his cock jutting out over the white linens. Will grinned at the sight and eased down in front of him, careful not to move too quickly. When John's arms came up around him, Will allowed himself to be maneuvered until his back was pressed up against John's chest, his rump just far enough forward that slick fingers could find that dark hidden place between his legs.

Will savored that gentle exploration, which they rarely bothered with these days, while staring out the window to the moonlit trees that flew past their window. A wave of affection washed over him as he realized that John had arranged them so that Will could stare outside as they made love, something he hadn't been able to do since they'd left the ranch. 

A hot, blunt pressure pushed between his cheeks, and pleasure rippled through Will's body as he was breached. "Yes," he whispered in encouragement as his eyes slipped shut, letting him fully enjoy those first few shocking moments. 

He opened his eyes once John was fully seated, watching the shifting moonlight shadows as he and John rocked lazily together, letting the motion of the train do most of the work. It was a long, indulgent, sweet fuck and Will was nearly boneless with pleasure and quiet happiness when he came.

~~~ 

By the time they made it to Omaha, Will was cranky and exhausted. Their cozy berth had lost much of its luster after a night of two big men trying to sleep crammed into a narrow bunk. On the second night they hadn't even made the attempt, but after four years of sleeping next to John, Will found it hard to sleep by himself, even with John's familiar snores coming from just a couple of feet above Will's head. As a result, Will was barely awake during their transfer at Saint Louis and he didn't even remember the transfer at Kansas City, though John assured Will that he'd walked to the next train under his own power and carried his own luggage.

Their original plan for Omaha lodgings was to stay at the Millard Hotel, which was by all accounts the nicest in the city, but John had frowned at the building's squat, blocky exterior and kept on walking. Will sighed, reminded himself that walking was supposed to be good for his leg, and followed. Fortunately, he didn't have far to go – a mere block later they spotted another tall building, this one full of round-topped windows, fancy balconies, and unnecessary architectural curlicues. John loved it, of course.

These days, Will was a bit too well dressed to pass for John's poor backcountry cousin so he was prepared to pay for his own room for appearance's sake. As it turned out, the balcony rooms were in such great demand that there was only one remaining, and the concierge didn't even blink at John's suggestion that he and Will would share the room. Sadly, Will was too tired to take advantage that night; he fell asleep the moment he hit the bed. 

He made up for that the next morning and by the time he and John had finished dallying in bed, Will's mood was greatly improved. He was as somber as a priest next to John, however; the other man was practically dancing with glee at the prospect of exploring the horse market and Will barely managed to get him to sit long enough for a hasty breakfast before he found himself hustled out the door.

The Union Stockyards in Omaha were beyond anything Will had expected. Massive white buildings stretched out as far as the eye could see, redolent with the odors of livestock. The horse and mule barn alone covered two blocks and the sheep barn looked like it might be even larger once construction on it was finished. The floors and walkways were all cement instead of dirt, and the pens were laid down with fresh straw and water in huge cement troughs. The straw and water were in high demand as tens of thousands of animals were on display, with one man bragging that ten thousand more arrived each day. Looking around at the sheer size and scope of the structure, Will figured the advertising was right: this was the largest and best single barn in the world.

John, on the other hand, barely glanced around before heading directly to the center pens near the front of the barn, where the best horses were displayed in smaller numbers than the herds in the back. He passed by several dozen horses that looked perfectly fine to Will, eventually stopping in front of a tall, sturdy bay. For several minutes John just looked the animal over, checking its withers and teeth and hooves, before taking the horse's head in his hands and staring at its eyes for several seconds. The horse bore this treatment with remarkable patience and Will wasn't surprised when John announced, "Will, this one is for you."

John knew more about horseflesh than Will could ever dream to learn, so Will just nodded and moved forward to replace John in front of the animal. "He have a name?" he asked the seller.

The man shifted a wad of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. "Nope."

Clearly a man to let his product speak for itself. Will turned back to the horse, which lipped hopefully at his shirt. Will chuckled and held out a sugar cube. The speed with which the horse snatched up the treat reminded Will very strongly of a certain sweet-toothed outlaw of his acquaintance, but he didn't imagine John would be very happy if Will named a horse after him. 'Charles' was also out, for the same reason. 

"Pity, though," Will murmured to the horse, who was now shamelessly sniffing at Will's sugar-producing pocket. "I'd love to see his face if I tried it."

Then he laughed as a thought occurred to him: Charles Merriweather wasn't the first alias they'd come up with for John. "What do you think of Clarence?"

The seller snorted with disdain, but the horse whickered happily. "Clarence it is, then." He patted Clarence on the nose and fed him one more sugar cube before heading off to find Clarence's namesake. It didn't take long: John was standing next to a pen that held only one animal, a palomino mare with a golden hide and pure white mane and tail, who was offering up a fantastic show of bucking, shying, and other behavior generally considered undesirable in a horse. John looked positively entranced.

Will sighed. "Please tell me you aren't thinking of buying her."

"She's spirited," John said. "I like that in an animal."

'Spirited' wasn't the word Will would have used. 'Bad-tempered', maybe. Or 'dangerous'. "This one has a name," the seller offered up from behind them. "The boys named her Raging Bitch."

"I'll take her," John said.

Will sighed again and prepared to haggle. If they were going to be stuck with this animal, he planned to pay as little as possible.


	3. Chapter 3

They took Clarence with them when they left but made arrangements to pick up the mare the next day. John was confident that he could tame her by then. Will was less confident but he saw no benefit in saying so out loud.

Their first stop, after getting Clarence settled in a stable, was a general store, where John paid a fortune for a wizened apple and pear, a handful of carrots, and a twist of every type of boiled sweet in the store. Will couldn't imagine that the mare would be won over by a peppermint humbug but he wasn't going to be the one to have to ride her, so he firmly told himself that it wasn't his problem. Though he was going to have to ride _beside_ her. He offered up a silent prayer that she wasn't a biter.

Their next stop was an outfitter, as their initial plan to use their old supplies had fallen by the wayside when John discovered that he no longer fit in his clothes and Will had rediscovered that his own clothing had already lasted more years than Molly had ever intended when she'd made them. That trip took much of the day, as they argued over how many supplies were ideal versus how many could be carried without going back to the market to buy a pack horse. John had won the battle as he had vastly more trail experience than Will, but Will considered himself the true victor when he managed to talk John out of the pack horse.

There was a small supply of saddles at the outfitter, but John disdained them all and dragged Will a few blocks over to a saddler, where they spent a ridiculous amount of money on two saddles. Will had to admit, though: the saddle was by far the most comfortable he'd ever used.

Finally, carrying enough supplies that Will's bad leg was protesting from the weight, they returned to the hotel. There they had a quick dinner in the restaurant before splitting up, Will to their room for reading and John back to the stable to test out his horse bribes and to mull over a name for the mare. Will made him swear not to return until he'd picked one; he didn't want a repeat of the three months John had spent agonizing over Clever Girl's moniker.

Four hours later, Will was starting to regret that ultimatum and when John finally walked in – with at least two bite marks that Will could see, damn it – Will jumped up to greet him. "So?"

"So what?"

Will narrowed his eyes. "You know what I'm talking about, John. What's her name?"

John beamed. "Lady Godiva. And she loves butterscotches."

"And the bites?"

"Turns out she has a powerful dislike of peppermint humbugs."

Will grinned.

Though it was getting mighty late, Will was very aware of the fact that this was their last chance to sleep in a real bed for quite a while. Fortunately, John was equally aware and they spent a number of hours enjoying pursuits that were most pleasurable on a soft surface. By the time they were due to check out, Will was sore and exhausted and in a very good mood.

They hit the trail just before noon, under a blue sky with nary a cloud to mar the perfect dome. They kept to a walk partially because Will was half-asleep in his saddle and partially because any time they tried to go faster, Lady Godiva took to shying away from her own shadow. A lesser rider than John would have been bucked off more than once by the time they decided to call it a day.

Well, Will decided to call it a day. John decided to call it the start of Lady Godiva's training. 

For over three hours, Will and Clarence watched as John put Lady Godiva through her paces. It was slow going at first, as she didn't take kindly to the exercises and did her best to buck John right off. John didn't even do much to fight her, just rode out the rough ride until she was too exhausted to keep going. 

That's when the training really began.

By the time dusk was approaching, Lady Godiva was dark with sweat and her sides were heaving. John patted her affectionately on her bowed neck and then slid to the ground. "Hey, Will, toss me the butterscotches."

Lady Godiva's ears twitched and her head lifted a fraction. When John held out a butterscotch for her, she immediately stepped forward and took it out of his hand with a bit more enthusiasm than Will was comfortable seeing. John just smiled and continued to stroke her neck as he fed her a few more pieces.

~~~

When Will was planning this trip, he'd spent a lot of time anticipating the intimacy he and John would be sharing under the stars. Unfortunately, he hadn't taken into account the fact that he'd barely been on a horse's back over the last four years, much less ridden one for hours on end: Will's back, butt, and legs were so tired and sore that he couldn't imagine getting aroused, much less doing anything about it. Even John, who had ridden nearly every day in Boston, looked tired after his exertions and though they laid their bedrolls out close enough that they could touch, both were asleep the moment their heads hit the ground.

The next morning, Will woke up feeling as if he'd been pummeled. "Who thought this trip was a good idea again?" he asked with a groan.

John, who was staring up at the sky with a smile on his face, answered, "You did. And once you get back into fighting form, you'll be happy that you came."

Will grunted in disbelief and dragged himself upright to get the fire started, with the vague notion that maybe coffee would help.

In deference to Will's soreness and Lady Godiva's sulking, they took it even easier that day than they had the day before, taking long breaks and stopping mid-afternoon. Once again, Will and Clarence took a break while John continued training Lady Godiva and once again, Lady Godiva did everything in her power to unseat John, to Will's secret amusement. She gave up sooner this time, however, and judging from the way her ears perked up during some of the exercises, she wasn't feeling too abused. This time her head was still held high when John called it a night, though it went even higher when John called for the butterscotches and she didn't protest at all when John spent a long time grooming her that evening while periodically feeding her candies.

A week into the trip, Will was finally feeling fit enough to ride the full day through and Lady Godiva's temperament had improved enough that she only tried to bite Clarence when he hit her with his tail. John defended her, convinced Clarence was hitting her on purpose. Will was convinced that John was getting far too attached to his mare.

During this week John tried, with a complete lack of success, to get Lady Godiva to respond to her name. Will observed these increasingly frustrated attempts with interest and finally took pity on John. "Hey, Butterscotch!"

Lady Godiva's ears perked up and she trotted over to Will, who fed her a candy.

John looked appalled. "No."

"Sorry," Will said, without a hint of sincerity.

"But it's a terrible name!"

"She seems to like it."

"The horse doesn't get to pick her name," John protested. "The _owner_ picks the name!"

"If you say so," Will said, and fed the mare another candy.

~~~

They were nearly two weeks into their journey when Butterscotch started acting up again. She'd been so well-behaved of late that Will had been anticipating an unpleasant incident as her true nature finally won out against the prospect of sweets, but John looked around intently and after just a few seconds pointed off to the north. "Smoke."

Will stiffened. This far north there probably wasn't much risk of anyone recognizing John, but they were far enough off of the main trail that the chances of the smoke being from a lunchtime cook fire were next to nil. Either someone was up to no good or someone was in trouble. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell which without going to investigate.

John was already galloping in the direction of the smoke by the time Will turned to follow. For once, Will was grateful for the pair of six-shooters that John wore and he took a moment to ensure his own rifle was in easy reach before kicking Clarence to a gallop. 

Butterscotch may not have been the sweetest-tempered horse Will had ever encountered, but she was one of the fastest. By the time Clarence reached the source of the fire, John was already off his horse and picking his way through the smoldering prairie grass to the charred remains of what had recently been a small wagon full of pioneers.

"Damn," Will muttered as he slid off Clarence's back. The horse immediately backed up a few steps, huffing in distress. Will couldn't blame the poor creature. There were at least three bodies on the ground, and he thought he saw a glimpse of a fourth in the smoking remains of the wagon. The horses had been stolen, of course, along with most of the supplies, but Will could see some clothing lying about and a quilt that had been cast aside, probably in the search for more valuable plunder. The quilt was patchwork, slightly ragged with age and use, and the thought of all of the time and love that had been put into each one of those carefully shaped designs made Will's eyes sting.

"Will!" John shouted and Will turned to see John crouched over the smallest of the bodies on the ground: a girl that couldn't have been much more than eight. "I think she's alive," John added.

Will ran over to kneel down next to John. "The others?"

"Dead," John said, carefully running his hand over the girl's arms and legs to check for breaks. He didn't find any, but when he carefully turned the girl's head to see the other side of her face, Will gasped. Fire had burned away a large swath of her skin and hair, leaving behind a raw wound marked with streaks of char.

"Get some water," John said tersely. "And the whisky."

Will ran back to the horses to gather a canteen, the whisky, and after a moment's thought, John's spare shirt.

As he came back, he saw John had raised the girl's skirt. With a relieved expression, he lowered it again.

"She's intact?" Will asked quietly.

John nodded to him, then patted the girl's hand. "I'm done now." The girl didn't respond. As far as Will could tell, she hadn't moved at all since he and John had arrived, except to blink and breathe.

Will handed John the supplies he had brought. "What can I do?"

"Get a blanket for me to put her on, then set up camp nearby." John looked over the ruins of the camp that surrounded them. "Not too close, though."

Will nodded and retrieved the quilt that he'd seen earlier. John gently moved the girl over onto it and Will watched for a moment as John carefully scraped the girl's hair out of her wound before turning away to collect the horses.

An hour later the camp was set up, with bedrolls laid out, horses pegged, wood gathered, and a fire burning inside of an unusually large and scrupulously built stone circle. Will looked over the pristine camp and felt a hint of shame that was quickly overcome by dread as he shoved down his cowardice and trudged back in John's direction.

He had just cleared the hill between them when he met John with the girl in his arms. Will eyed the quilt-covered bundle and the tiny head swathed in strips of John's silk shirt. "Need help?" he asked quietly.

"Not for this," John said. "But you're going to need to watch over her while I go for supplies."

Will swallowed thickly, but nodded. A moment later he reconsidered. "Shouldn't the girl go, too? Even if we can't find a doctor, she'd be more comfortable in a hotel."

John snorted. "Hotel? This far out, we'll be lucky if we can find a saloon."

Will thought about what saloons were like, especially in the middle of ranching country, and winced.

"Besides," John added, "She can identify the bastards who did this."

"All the more reason to bring her to the sheriff."

"If there is a sheriff. And if she's capable of talking by them."

Will looked at the girl, who hadn't made a motion or a sound the entire time he and John had been talking. He hadn't heard any noise earlier, not when John was first looking the girl over, and not later, when he was cleaning the hair out of her wound. "Didn't she react at all when you were tending to her?" John shook his head. "Not even when you used the whisky?" Another shake.

"Damn." If Will had been in the girl's place, he didn't think he could've held back a scream. Considering what the girl went through, though, maybe it was for the best. "You think she'll come out of it?"

"I don't know," John said. He started walking again and Will turned to keep pace with him. "I've only seen a couple of people in a daze like this before. Adults, both of them." He glanced down at the girl before adding in a quiet voice, "Neither one made it."

They finished the walk to the camp in silence.

Once the girl was settled down on one of the bedrolls, John gathered his and Will's canteens and emptied one into the other. "Here," he said, handing the full canteen to Will. "If she moves at all, try get to get her to drink as much water as she can."

"And if she doesn't move?"

"Pour some into her mouth anyway." Off Will's incredulous look, John explained, "Big burns like that, they leak water like a sieve. If she doesn't drink enough, it won't be the burns that kill her."

Will's stomach clenched at the thought; he'd never seen a child die before and the thought of one dying under his care ... "I'll make sure she drinks."

Some of the tension bled out of John's body. "I know you will." He stared at Will for a moment, then pulled him into an embrace, which Will gratefully returned. "I'll be as fast as I can," John said fiercely.

"We'll be right here waiting for you," Will promised. "Be safe."

"You, too. Keep an eye out, in case those bastards come back."

Will stared out over the plains long after John left, not quite ready to face the damaged child behind him. Still, he couldn't put it off forever so, with one last lingering look into the distance, he turned back to the girl.

She hadn't moved so much as a hair and Will felt a brief rush of panic at the thought that she might have died in the minutes since John rode away. Rushing forward, he fell to his knees and, despite the shooting pain in his leg, held a shaky hand in front of her mouth. A moment later, he let himself fall back onto his ass as he felt the faintest brush of air. For now, at least, she was still alive.

Not quite ready to attempt to force water down the girl's throat, Will pushed himself back upright and limped over to the saddlebags. Using as little of the precious water as possible, he set some beans to soaking for dinner, though at the moment he couldn't imagine having an appetite anytime soon. Maybe he could get the girl to eat his portion.

The girl who was still lying in the same uncomfortable-looking lump as when John had put her on the ground.

Will sighed and carried the canteen back over to the girl. Moving carefully this time, he settled himself down next to her and murmured, "Hey, girl. It's time for you to drink some water." Of course, she didn't react. Will sighed and ran a gentle hand over her hair, being careful to avoid the makeshift bandage over her burns. The fabric still smelled faintly of whisky, but Will didn't think the reddish-tinged dampness of the cloth was due to the alcohol. 

"Damn," he breathed. "Sorry, but I don't think we should keep putting this off. Can you open your mouth for me?" No response. Will considered just leaving her where she lay and attempting to get some water into her mouth, but with her head tilted to the side like that, he figured most of it would just pour out. Not to mention that drinking while lying down was a good way to choke to death.

"Let's get you sitting up," Will said, still speaking softly. As gently as possible, he worked his hands under her back and lifted her up. The moment he took his hands away, however, she started to fall back down, and only a quick catch on his part kept her upright.

For a moment he just sat there, staring at the girl, unsure of what to do next. 

She blinked.

Will startled so hard he nearly dropped her again. "Hey, can you hear me?"

No response, not even another blink. 

Will slumped, let down and more than a little annoyed with himself. If Mrs. Potter or, God forbid, Molly, could see him right now, they'd be ashamed of him. Cursing himself and abandoning attempts to talk to the girl, he pulled the knee of his good leg up to his chest and manhandled the girl until she was resting against the resulting makeshift seat back. It wasn't a position he could hold forever – he could already feel the strain on his bad leg as it countered the girl's weight – but it would do for the time being as he tilted the girl's head back and carefully pulled down on her chin to open her mouth.

It promptly shut.

Will stared for a moment, then pulled down the chin again. Again the mouth opened and again it shut. On the third try, the mouth didn't open at all; when Will tried pulling down on the chin, the girl's whole head came up. Even better, when Will let go of her chin, the head stayed upright. "Hey there," Will said gently, taking one of her hands with his canteen-free one. "Can you hear me?"

The girl didn't seem to notice his words, but she flinched at the touch of his hand. Will immediately let go. "It's okay," he said quickly. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The girl looked around with a confused expression her face. Will gave her time, though when she lifted a hand to where the burn was, he quickly grabbed it, this time ignoring the flinch. "You don't want to do that. You're hurt."

She frowned and looked at Will, seeming to really see him for the first time. 

Suddenly she scrambled away, moving so quickly that Will didn't even have a chance to try and stop her. Will started to stand, but when the girl immediately stumbled back a step, he sat back down. "I'm not going to hurt you." She didn't look convinced but she stayed put, so he added, "My name is Will. Will Connors. What's your name?"

She just stared back.

"That's okay," he said quickly. "You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to. But I do need you to drink this water. Can you do that for me?" He held out the canteen. She scowled and shook her head rapidly.

All things considered, that was tremendous progress. "It's safe, I promise. Here, I'll drink some first." Acutely aware of the girl's suspicious eyes on him, he uncapped the canteen and tilted his head back, letting the water fall through an inch or two of air, so it was clearly visible. He held the canteen away from his face before swallowing. "See? All safe." Recapping the canteen, he leaned forward as far as he could and placed it on the ground, before scooting back away, using his arms more than his legs.

The girl watched him until he stopped moving before sending a longing glance in the direction of the canteen. "Go ahead. It's all for you."

It took several minutes of waiting and the occasional bit of encouragement before the girl could be convinced to step forward and take the canteen. The moment it was in her hands, she darted back to the other side of the fire. Will didn't say anything, just watched as she desperately guzzled down the water and hoped that John would be back soon with the supplies.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time the sun was going down in the west, Will was starting to get worried. John still hadn't come back, the girl still hadn't spoken, and they were completely out of water. Making things more difficult was that Will was morbidly aware of the bodies just on the other side of the hill from their camp, probably being fed upon by the vultures that he'd seen flying to and fro all day. If John were here, Will would have left him with the girl and gone to bury the bodies. Unfortunately John wasn't here and Will couldn't leave the girl alone while he tended to the remains of her family. 

Still, the thought of those vultures tearing away at human skin and bones...

Movement to his left mercifully dragged his attention back into the camp, where he found the girl shifting from side to side in a very familiar dance. Apparently kids were all the same, boy or girl. "Need to make water?"

The girl looked at him suspiciously before nodding.

Will jerked his head in the opposite direction of the vultures. "If you promise to shout if you need help, you can head over that hill there. If you won't promise, you can go behind that bush behind me. I won't look, but I'll be listening." The girl scowled, but after surviving the scowls of his own child, Will had no difficulty enduring this one. Eventually the girl got up in a distinctly sulky manner and stomped off in the direction of the bush. Will waited till he was sure she couldn't see his face before allowing himself to smile.

While the girl did her business, Will put the beans closer to the fire and considered what to do until John came back. The previous few hours had been spent attempting to ignore the girl while she stared at him and trying not to think too much about the girl's family. Frankly, Will would rather shoot himself in the head before returning to either of those activities so, once the girl returned to the safety of the camp, he went over to his saddlebags and dug through them for his notebook and pencil. "You like drawing?"

The girl stared at him some more. Will felt a sudden urge to write a letter to Tommy, thanking him for being such a happy, talkative boy. "I have this paper and a pencil. I'm going to set it down over there next to the saddle. If you want to use it, you can."

Matching actions to words, Will set down the pad and pencil, then swung by the saddlebags to pick up the book he'd purchased at their last supply stop, called _The Riddle of the Sands_. He'd never read anything quite like it, not only because of the theme of espionage, but also for the remarkable amount of research the author must have done to make it so detailed. At the rate he was reading it, he'd need to find another before they reached the ranch, but he figured Mrs. Potter wouldn't mind another book or two to add to the boys' reading lessons. 

Settling back down on his bedroll, Will intentionally let himself get caught up in the adventures of Carruthers and Davies. It was an engrossing tale, and it was nearly a chapter before Will remembered to look up again. He found the girl sitting next to the saddle with the pad balanced on her knees, the tip of her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on her drawing. The band of white cloth tied over her head made her look younger and a bit lopsided and Will smiled, feeling an unexpected surge of protectiveness.

His smile faded as he acknowledged the feeling. Chances were this girl was going to die of her burns when the infection set in. Even if she did survive, there was no possibility of him and John keeping her. She wasn't their kin.

The thought made him wonder if she did have family. If she did, they'd have to be tracked down somehow, though Will couldn't begin to imagine how if the girl didn't start talking. Maybe there was something among the remains marked with the family's name.

If she didn't have family, things would be far more difficult. Even if the burn didn't kill her, it was going to leave a significant and unsightly scar. Will knew from John's stories that visibly damaged children rarely made it out of orphanages and those that did usually found their way back, often with more scarring than when they'd left. There was no possibility of Will leaving this girl in an orphanage to rot; even if he would, John would never agree.

Hopefully she had family somewhere, because Will had no idea what they would do if she didn't. "Hey, girl," he called, making his voice gentle to keep from startling the child. Didn't do much good; she flinched badly, causing the pencil to slide across the page in a way she clearly hadn't been planning judging from the way she scowled, first at the picture, then at Will. "Sorry," he said, trying to keep from smiling. From this angle, with the bandage covering the eye closest to him, she looked a bit like a tiny, irate mummy. "I just realized that I can't keep calling you 'girl' all the time. How about you tell me your name?" No response from the girl, naturally. "Maybe you could write it down for me?" The girl just ducked her head.

"I didn't think it'd be that easy," Will admitted. He considered the sky off in the distance, wondering if that was the direction John had headed. He was pretty sure there was a town in that direction, albeit one a good fifteen miles away, but he wouldn't be surprised if John had been able to find a closer one. The man seemed to have a nose for civilization, possibly as a result of all of those years on the run. Still, it was getting closer to nightfall and no sign of John. Will sighed. "What if I do all of the talking and you just nod when I get it right? Can you do that for me?"

The girl considered that for a moment, dragging her pencil tip over her paper, though she was no longer looking at either. Finally, she nodded.

Will felt a surge of excitement at the possibility that he was finally going to get some answers. "That's perfect. Now I'm going to go say some letters. Nod when I get to the first letter of your name."

Slowly he went the entire alphabet, without ever getting a nod from the girl. At first Will frowned, thinking she was just being obdurate, but the longer he went on reciting letters, the more tense the little girl's body became and the harder she pressed her pencil point into the paper. Finally, Will gave up. "You can't spell your name, can you?"

The girl just turned her head away.

"Well, it's not like we have a shortage of time," Will said, though the prospect of infection was hovering in the back of his mind. No reason to scare the girl, though; if the infection came, it came. "Is your name Molly?" Slight shake of the girl's head. "Mary? Annie? Charlotte?" More shaking. Will kept on going, thinking of every woman he'd ever met and every female name he'd ever heard. Eventually, he stumbled on "Kate" and the girl twitched.

"Kate?" Will repeated. The girl did something with her head that wasn't quite a nod but wasn't quite a shake, either. Taking that as 'close, but not quite right,' Will guessed, "Katie?"

This time the girl nodded and though it might've been a trick of the incoming dusk and the flickering firelight, Will thought she looked slightly happier – or at least less miserable – than before.

Will considered the girl and the fact that if John didn't return in the next hour or so with medical supplies, there was a good chance that he and Katie would be stuck with each other for the rest of the night. The long, long night, during which Will was going to have to stay up to watch for infection and Katie was probably going to have nightmares. Horrific ones. "Hey, Katie? How would you like to learn how to read?"

By the time dusk was falling in earnest, Katie had allowed Will close enough for him to borrow the notebook and show her the letters. Since they still had a bit of light left, he lined a few pages in her book so she could practice writing them while he cooked up the beans with a few chunks of bacon. As she carefully drew a capital B, Will was forcibly reminded of Tommy sitting at the kitchen table, nose nearly touching the page as he copied the letters that Molly had written out for him. Tommy had been an uncommonly fast learner and he was reading a good year before any of the other kids in the town.

Katie was doing pretty well for her first time, better than Tommy, but then she was probably four or five years older and she had to have seen letters before, even if she hadn't been able to read them. Still, Will felt a hint of pride as she filled the page with the alphabet. One thing for sure, she was a lot more patient than Tommy had been when he'd been learning to write.

By the time dinner was ready, dusk had pretty much fallen. Katie was still hard at work at her learning, though Will doubted the girl could see anything sitting that far back from the fire. He could hardly blame her for caution, however, so in the end he took both plates over and dropped down onto the ground next to her. She eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but the smell of the food was apparently enough of a distraction because a moment later she turned her attention to her plate and began wolfing down her dinner.

Will faltered in his own eating at the sight of her bolting her food, so hungry that she was using both her fork and her hands. Up to this point, he hadn't really looked at the girl too closely outside of her burn, but on closer inspection he saw that her wrists and ankles were stick thin and her head seemed a bit too big for her body. 

Will swore to himself. Thanks to Lincoln's Homestead Act, a lot of poor families from east of the Mississippi had opted to head west in the hopes of finding good free land on which to build a new life. Many of them sold everything they had to be able to afford a cheap wagon and a half-dead animal to pull it, leaving little if nothing for provisions. Most figured they could forage for food along the way; eastern forests were full of animals and wild fruit and even if the family was literate and had read some of the dime westerns available in every bookstore and library, it was impossible to truly comprehend the vast, dry plains and deserts of the west just from books.

Katie's family was probably as illiterate as she was, which meant that not only had they not been expecting the lack of water and scarcity of food on the plains, but they undoubtedly didn't realize that most watered land out west had long since been claimed by the first rush of homesteaders. These days it would be a miracle to find even a tiny spring that hadn't yet been claimed, and chances were the family would be killed for that spring long before they could build the improvements necessary to claim the land, much less survive the five years required before they could get the deed.

It was a hard thing to realize that Katie would likely have a better chance of surviving to adulthood now than she would have if her family were still alive.

Will's morbid thoughts were interrupted by the faint sound of a horse being ridden harder than was probably safe in the twilight. Will's head snapped up; next to him Katie froze like a rabbit caught in the gaze of a predator. "Get the quilt and go to the other side of the saddle," Will murmured to her. "Hide under the blanket and make yourself as small as possible."

Katie didn't even bother to nod, just snatched up the quilt and scampered away through the shadows.

For his part, Will quickly wiped the girl's plate and fork clean and limped over to the saddlebags to tuck them away, pulling out his rifle at the same time. Glancing back, he noted with grim satisfaction that the new cloth-covered lump next to the saddle looked like a pile of untidy luggage in the flickering firelight. Will considered going to sit back against the other side of the saddle, which was where he'd be if this were any ordinary night, but he couldn't risk scrutiny in that area, so he limped over to the other side of the fire and settled back down onto his bedroll. The rifle he placed the edge of the bedroll farthest from the fire, where it would be hidden by the flickering shadows and uncertain light, and he picked up his barely touched plate of food and made a passable show of being hungry.

All of which proved to be completely unnecessary when the man who rode into the camp turned out to be John.

Will jumped up and immediately regretted it when his bad leg cramped, forcing him to limp a couple of steps before the leg behaved the way it should. By that point, John was close enough to touch and Will ignored the residual pain in his thigh to focus all of his attention on embracing John.

"Shit," John said, gripping Will tightly in return. "Did the girl ..."

"She's fine," Will said quickly. "She's hiding behind the saddle over there. I was just," he took a deep breath and considered what he was about to say, acutely aware of the small person who was undoubtedly listening intently to every word, "having some dark thoughts. I'm glad you're back."

John smiled slightly and glanced over his shoulder to the saddle and the cloth-covered girl beyond. "Looks like she can't see us," he murmured as he turned back and, despite the entire nightmarish situation they now found themselves in, Will couldn't help a tiny smile as John leaned forward for a gentle, but satisfyingly long and involved kiss. 

Unfortunately, the possibility of curious eyes couldn't be ignored forever so the kiss was all they could allow themselves. Will pulled back reluctantly. "Did you get the supplies?"

John nodded. "More canteens – all of them full of water – gauze, laudanum, some more food –"

Will cut in. "Laudanum? I don't know that we're going to need that. The girl doesn't seem to be feeling much pain." A miracle, in Will's opinion, but one for which he was deeply grateful.

"Bad burns don't hurt much except at first," John said. "The laudanum is for when it's time to dose the burn with whisky."

Will blanched. "Whisky? Again? Why?"

"To keep the infection away," John said. "That's what old doc Watkins said when Prosper burned."

"Prosper," Will said blankly. He was quite sure John never mentioned that town to him before. He had, however, told him a story once about a town that he'd cared about that had been burned to the ground. The town that John had helped to free from his old master's tight grip, only to have it destroyed by the railroad a few years later. "Was that Tanner Stone's town?" 

John nodded. Will swore softly and embraced John again. John squeezed back so tightly Will's ribs creaked. "How many were burned?" Will asked quietly, keeping his mouth next to John's ear so the sound wouldn't carry.

"A couple hundred survived the fire," John whispered, the grim words washing against Will's neck on a wave of hot breath. Any other time that heat would have moved down to Will's loins, but now it just made him hold John tighter.

"And what percentage of those survived their burns?" When John didn't answer right away, Will added, "If everyone who survived the fire was a dollar, then how many—"

"A nickel."

Will's stomach lurched. "A _nickel_?"

"There were hundreds of them," John said, sounding a little desperate despite the quietness of his voice. "And only the doc and I to take care of them. We barely had enough whisky for them all."

"And I'm guessing not nearly enough laudanum?"

John shook his head.

Will swore again. "John –" Will took a deep breath and glanced over John's shoulder to make sure Katie was still hidden away. "John," he started again, this time speaking so quietly that even Will himself had to strain to hear his words. "If the girl only has a nickel's chance of surviving, maybe we should just skip the whisky."

John tensed and pulled back. "But the doc said –"

"I can imagine what the doctor said," Will cut in. He could imagine the doctor, too – an older man who had come out west in his youth, full of frontier spirit but far away from any news of modern medical advancements. A man a lot like Doctor Smithson and his beloved leeches, the same leeches that he'd used on Molly during her last illness. The same leeches that Will had later learned had probably caused her death. "But she's such a little girl, John. She shouldn't have to die in agony."

John's body remained rigid in Will's arms for a moment before he slumped. He didn't say anything out loud, but Will felt the brush of John's nose and mouth against his neck as John nodded.

"Thank you," Will said in relief. He squeezed John tightly one more time, then let go. "You've had a long day; you need to eat."

"Not really hungry right now," John admitted.

"Not even for beans and bacon with syrup on top?"

John's lips twitched. "You have syrup?"

"Did you really think I'd go on the trail with you without it?" He shoved John gently. "Go, take care of Butterscotch. I'll get your dinner ready."

Despite his protests of not being hungry, John quickly finished off the remaining contents of the cooking pot. While John focused on filling his gullet, Will picked away at his own food and surreptitiously kept an eye on Katie. Once or twice he caught her eyes peeking out, though she quickly pulled the quilt back in place when she caught Will staring. He wondered how much of the preceding conversation she'd heard. He wondered how much she saw.

Will was starting to realize that the girl could potentially be far more of a problem than he'd previously thought. She knew John's real first name, she undoubtedly had noticed John's bright and highly recognizable horse, she knew Will's name, and unless she was more dim-witted than Will thought, she'd probably figured out that he and John were a little closer than was strictly acceptable for two men. Right now, none of that mattered as she wasn't speaking, but if she ever did start talking again, Will would have to keep a close ear out to make sure she didn't let slip anything she shouldn't. He could only do that if she was still with them.

"How long before we're sure she'll live?" Will asked quietly.

John scooped the last of the sweetened beans and bacon into his mouth and set his plate aside. "If the burn dries up instead of festering, she should be okay."

Will failed to see how repeated application of whisky could encourage a burn to dry out, but kept that thought to himself. "Can she travel before then? Maybe we can get her to the town where you got your supplies."

"I thought we decided that wasn't safe."

"That was when she couldn’t talk."

John's head snapped around. "She's talking?"

"No, but she's nodding and shaking her head. If you ask her the right questions, you can learn a lot."

"Like?"

"Her name is Katie," Will said and felt a hint of satisfaction at the impressed look on John's face. "Also, she likes to draw and she doesn't know how to read. I started teaching her the alphabet."

John's expression abruptly changed to one of panic. "Did you let her use my drawing pad?"

"No," Will said cautiously. "I had her use my notebook. Why?"

John relaxed. "There's some pictures in there a little girl shouldn't see." Will lifted his eyebrows. "Probably that no one should see except you."

"Are these pictures that might be damaging to a young mind?" John didn't answer, which was answer enough. Will shook his head. "You shouldn't be drawing things like that; what would we do if people found it?"

"Start over," John said simply.

"That's your answer to everything," Will muttered. "I don't want to start over again, John. I like our life."

"You're my life," John said. "Everything else is just icing on the cake."

Will stared at John, stunned. He'd never had cause to doubt John's affections, and he hoped that John knew that those affections were returned, but they rarely spoke words of love to each other. "John, did something happen in the town?"

John rubbed his hands over his face, briefly distorting his familiar features. "I wasn't planning on telling you. I wasn't sure if I should."

"We can't have secrets between us, John. Especially not here." Here in the west, where John was a wanted man and Will's damaged leg was much more than a mild inconvenience.

John nodded and dropped his hands. "I know. I know, but ..." He sighed. "I was in the saloon, buying more whisky when I heard some men talking. They were drunk and talking louder than they probably meant to, about a woman that they'd –" he glanced back over at the unmoving, quilt-covered lump behind "– shared. They were laughing about how they'd made the husband watch and one of them said that he wished they'd taken a turn with the girl." His voice lowered as he spoke the last few words, until it was no more than a whisper.

Will suddenly felt cold. "You think they were talking about Katie? God _damn_ it. How many of them were there?"

"Five."

"Did you kill them?"

"I wanted to. It would've been so easy. They were stupid with drink, not paying attention to who was around them. I could've killed 'em all before they had a chance to draw a gun. No one would've stopped me. Hell, I think the whores might've even thanked me."

"But you didn't," Will said through a throat so tight it was getting hard to breathe. "Why?"

John looked over then, his eyes burning. "Because I made a promise to you, Will. As long as that promise stands, I'll never kill anyone again, except in self defense." He took a deep breath. "But I'm asking you now: release me. Release me from that promise so I can go back to town and kill those bastards who hurt that little girl and raped her mother and murdered her family."

Will stared at him, his heart pounding away in his chest. Part of him wanted to say yes. Part of him thought of those ruined, half-burned bodies and of the little girl hiding away under her dead mother's ragged quilt and wanted to rain bloody vengeance on those inhuman bastards.

But the other part of him, the better part, asked, _Who are you to play judge and jury? Who are you to kill five men, because you would be killing them just a surely as if you pulled the trigger yourself?_

And part of him, a dark, shameful piece of selfishness that he kept buried so deep that he sometimes managed to forget it existed at all, that part of him hated John at that moment, hated him for forcing Will to make this decision, to be his conscience. 

"I can't," Will whispered painfully. "I'm sorry, John, but I can't."

John stared at Will for a moment, before his head dropped down between his shoulders, looking utterly defeated. A moment later he stood up and walked away into the darkness.

Will didn't try to stop him.


	5. Chapter 5

As twilight darkened into the true black of night, so did Will's mood. Initially, he'd taken comfort in the fact that John had left without supplies and that Butterscotch was still standing on the other side of the fire, butting her nose into the long-suffering Clarence's withers. The longer John was gone, however, the more aware Will was that John never went anywhere without a healthy roll of bills in his pocket and his guns on his hips. That town he'd gone to for supplies couldn't have been too far away if he'd ridden there, scouted and purchased supplies, and ridden back in an afternoon. Certainly close enough to walk, if a man was determined. From there, it would be easy to buy or rent a horse and ride to the nearest town with a train station. 

So in the morning, Will would ride for the closest train station as well. He'd talk to John and hopefully they could find a compromise. If not, he could at least return Butterscotch to John and then maybe buy a ticket as well. Will had plenty of money on him, more than enough for a train ticket back to Boston ...

Boston. His city, where his beautiful, comfortable house was, a house that Will had never appreciated as much as he did now, as he remembered that the house had been purchased with John's money, back when John's money was all they had.

Will had his own money now, of course; his books were very successful and he usually wrote several of them every year. He could afford a house of his own, for what that was worth. At the moment, it didn't feel like it would be worth much, but with Katie to worry about –

Katie! Will's head snapped up and he twisted in his seat, looking for any sign of the girl. Not seeing any movement or any girl-shaped shadows, Will forced himself to his feet and limped over to Clarence's saddle, where he'd seen the girl last. Sure enough, a lumpy quilt was lying motionless on the ground.

Will's throat went dry as he took in the quilt's eerie stillness.

Resisting the urge to poke the lump, Will instead knelt down on his good leg, searched out a corner of the quilt, and carefully folded the blanket back.

He promptly let out a sigh of relief as he found the girl underneath, her cheeks rosy and her hair slightly damp with sleep sweat underneath the silk shirt bandage. Carefully, Will reached out and used a finger to drag a couple of strands of that hair away from her eyes. Then, feeling deeply nostalgic for a son who was growing up far too fast, Will gave into the urge to run his fingers through the girl's hair. It was as silky and fine as he remembered Tommy's hair being, and he felt a pang of longing to see his son.

That wasn't possible, of course. Tommy was already in Canada by now, undoubtedly having the time of his life with his friends.

Maybe Will shouldn't go to back to Boston. There were a lot of interesting-sounding places in the west, some just as modern and developed as the east coast. Maybe he'd go to Chicago. It wasn't too far away and he'd always wanted to see the Windy City. The Pinkertons were based there, and while most of their work was in breaking unions, Will remember reading a book about how one of their detectives had tracked down the bodies of three children who had gone missing. Surely someone like that would be able to find Katie's living relatives, if they existed.

"She still alive?"

Will nearly toppled over as he twisted around. John was standing behind him, the flickering firelight shadows making him look like he was covered in dust. "John!"

"The girl," John said patiently.

Will swallowed, and forced himself to turn back to the girl. His fingers had gotten tangled up in her hair and he carefully worked them free as he answered. "She's fine. Still no fever."

No answer from John, just the sound of boots crunching against the dirt. Will sighed and carefully pulled the quilt up to Katie's chin, then pushed himself to his feet.

John was sitting on the other side of the fire and in the better light Will could see that his grubbiness wasn't caused by shadows. "Where were you?"

"Digging graves."

"In the dark? Without tools?"

"There was a shovel on the wagon."

Will eased himself down next to John and stared into the fire. "Wasn't sure if you were coming back."

Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw John turn his head. "All that book learning and you're still an idiot."

Will felt the corners of his mouth twitch up a bit, as the tightness in his belly finally eased. "I'm sorry about the promise."

John turned back to the fire. "I made my choice. I don't regret it."

~~~

The next morning they changed Katie's bandages. There still wasn't any sign of infection, but the silk was nearly soaked through so John made Katie drink an entire canteen of water by herself before beginning to wrap her head again, this time in the clean gauze he'd purchased in town.

"How can we tell if the burn is healing?" Will asked, eyeing the massive, seeping wound doubtfully. 

"It'll scab over and dry up," John said absently, adjusting the gauze so it didn't catch in the girl's hair.

"Wouldn't it dry up faster if it was exposed to air?"

John's hands paused. "Dr. Watkins always covered the burns."

Watkins, the doctor who'd lost 95% of his patients. Katie was doing well so far, however, and the bandages weren't causing her any obvious pain, so Will just nodded and went off to fix breakfast.

After eating, Will and John had a quiet, heated discussion about what to do next. They both agreed that they couldn't remain where they were, not with the killers of Katie's family just a few miles away. Will wanted to head east, to Wichita, where there was sure to be a hospital. John wanted to head west, to a small abandoned ranch house that he'd heard about in town. Katie kept her opinions to herself, though Will did notice the way she curled up into a ball when their arguments grew a bit more vocal.

In the end, they decided to head south; they were three days from Amarillo, which probably had a hospital and definitely had a doctor. More importantly, a railroad ran through the town, which would cut off more than half of their remaining travel time. The horses would undoubtedly be unhappy with the situation – Will was dreading trying to get Butterscotch onto a stockcar – but if it meant getting the girl to Mrs. Potter a week and a half early, it was worth the trouble. If there was one thing he and John could agree on, it was that Mrs. Potter would know what to do.

The next couple of days passed quickly as Will and John rode hard for Texas. They took few breaks during the day, primarily to rest the horses, and both nights all three of them crashed hard and fast into sleep. After that first day, John declared himself too tired to deal with Katie's bandages and left them off; that morning was the first opportunity that Will had to see the burn in bright light and he was surprised to find that within the weeping red wound were patches of dry white skin the size of quarters.

"Is the skin supposed to look like that?" Will whispered to John as Katie went off to do her business behind a bush. 

John sighed. "I've seen it before. None of them made it as long as she has."

"Did they feel pain?" Will was starting to worry about that, too. At first the lack of pain had seemed like a blessing. Coupled with the color of the skin, however, Will was starting to think it was unnatural.

"Only when the doctor was treating them." John rubbed his face. "God, Will. How many of those people died because of me?"

Will turned to face him, startled. "What do you mean?"

"Look at her! She's alive, not in any pain, otherwise healthy ... do you think that would've been true if you'd let me do Dr. Watkins's treatment?"

Katie, who had just come from around the bush when John had started shouting, froze for a half-second before turning on her heel and heading over to the horses. She promptly hid herself between them.

John laughed humorlessly. "And now I'm scaring her. Great. She barely looks at me as it is."

"She's just spent more time with me," Will said quietly. "She'll get used to you, too, John."

John blew out a lungful of air. "Come on," he said flatly. "We're wasting daylight."

~~~

The night before they reached Amarillo, Will and John stayed up by the fire rather than laying out their bedrolls. Katie looked as if she were planning on staying up with them, but she wasn't used to the riding that they were doing and even bouncing along on Clarence's hindquarters was exhausting if you did it long enough. Before night had fully fallen, she was asleep.

"Think she's out?" John asked quietly.

"Like a light. Thought about what we're going to do in Amarillo?"

John chewed on his lower lip. "It's been nearly eight years since my last robbery. More than ten since the last time I stole anything in Texas. Maybe the posters aren't up anymore."

"Maybe."

"You don't sound convinced."

Will sighed. "John Anderson books sell really well in Texas."

"Damn it. Times like these, I wish I never told you to send that first story in."

Will snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, John. You love those books more than I do. You love seeing little kids reading them and talking about how much they want to be like John Anderson."

John opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Maybe."

Will hid a smile.

"But it makes things difficult now," John added. He stared into the fire for a moment. "I could always go as Charles Merriweather."

"You don't have time to regrow the beard; without that, you'll look just like you do in your wanted posters. Besides –" Will poked a stick into the fire. "Katie's heard me calling you John."

"What does that matter? She doesn't speak."

"She's a kid, John. Trust me, she'll decide to speak at the worst possible moment and likely say the worst possible thing."

They sat in silence a few minutes longer, watching the last traces of dusk fade from the sky. "We're at least thirty miles from Amarillo," Will said abruptly.

"Yeah," John said warily. "If you're worried about the horses, they'll –"

"I'm not thinking about the horses. We're in ranch country, John, and thirty miles is too far for a wagon to do in a day or even two. There must be a supply post around here somewhere, probably on the main trail. They may not have a sheriff's station or post office, but wanted posters still get put up, usually in the general store. I could go in and see if your poster is still up."

John considered that. "We could use some more food."

"And Katie needs a new dress." They both looked at the girl, who was still wearing the same filthy, threadbare rags as when they first found her. "Or two. Honestly, I don't know that I'd feel comfortable bringing her into Amarillo dressed like that. Questions would be asked."

"Questions that wouldn't be asked in a supply post?"

"Small towns and supply posts understand how harsh the west is in ways that city folk don't. I'll say she's my niece and that she was attacked by Indians. She clearly trusts me. They'll believe it."

"Unless she speaks."

"Unless she speaks," Will conceded. "Then there might be trouble."

"I'm going with you."

Will turned to him, exasperated. "The whole point of this is to see if you're still wanted _without_ you getting arrested."

"They aren't going to know I'm there, Will. You know I can move through a town without being seen."

Will felt a wash of affection as he remembered those early days, before he and John had ever been intimate with each other, when John had insisted on accompanying Will on his annual cattle drive. Once they'd reached their destination, John had snuck into Will's hotel room via the window to avoid capture. "That was at night. And you had friends in Bisbee."

"I didn't always have friends in Bisbee," John pointed out. "And I didn't get caught then, either." Will opened his mouth to argue some more, but John added, "I'll be careful, Will. I'll stay in the back ways and the alleys, in the shadows."

"It's a risk," Will said helplessly.

"So's a man going into a town with a damaged girl who isn't his blood kin. I just want to be nearby if there's trouble. Tell me you wouldn't do the same if I was the one going into town."

Will scowled, but he could hardly argue the point. "You'll be careful." It was a command.

"I've done this before. I'll be fine." Will continued to stare at him. John sighed. "Yes, I'll be careful. I promise."

Will winced at the choice of words, but nodded and turned back to the fire. He watched it in silence for several long minutes, listening to the crackle as the fire burnt away tiny pockets of sap, feeling the shifting heat of the flames on his face as the night wind brushed the hair away from his neck. The smell of burning wood filled his nose, overpowering John's scent. 

"I want to touch you," Will said, hoarsely.

"God, yes," John said, and the depth of longing in his voice was startling. "She's asleep."

"But what if she wakes up and sees us?" The very thought made Will's balls crawl.

"You didn't worry about Tommy seeing when you and Molly kissed, did you?"

Will leveled a stare at him. "I'm not talking about kissing."

"I know. But I think kissing is the only thing we're going to be doing until we get to the ranch."

"I'm afraid once we start kissing, we might move on to other things," Will admitted.

"You don't need to be afraid," John said, leaning in to brush his lips across Will's. Any thought of protest fled Will's mind as he reciprocated with enthusiasm.

In the end, John had the right of it: they kissed and comforted each other thoroughly by the fire, but any time Will felt the urge to move his hands lower, the thought of the little girl sleeping nearby stopped him. Finally, though, the kissing got to be too much without the possibility of going further and he pulled back reluctantly. "We should get some sleep."

"Yeah," John said roughly, his eyes locked on Will's mouth. "Need to be awake for tomorrow."

They stared at one another. "Sleep," Will reminded.

John let out a long breath. "Right, sleep." He shook his head and shifted over to his bedroll, which was laid out next to Will's.

Will dropped back onto his own bedroll and stared up into the stars, trying to ignore the throbbing heat between his legs.

"Will?" John said quietly.

"Yeah, John?"

"Next time we go on a vacation, let's take the train."

"Amen to that," Will muttered. He turned to his side, facing away from temptation, and did his best to think of anything at all other than sex. This was looking to be a very long night.

~~~

The next morning, both Will and John were inclined to be irritable. Katie put up with it for a few minutes before going to hide between the horses. Will watched her go with a niggling of guilt in his stomach, but decided it was probably best for her to stay out of the way until he and John had consumed enough coffee to be human.

"Butterscotch has really taken to the girl, hasn't she?" Will commented after guzzling down his first cup.

John looked over blearily; he looked like he'd gotten even less sleep than Will. "That's because the girl keeps bribing her with my candy."

Since Will knew perfectly well that John slipped candy to both Katie and Butterscotch every chance he got, he just hid his smile into his cup and set about getting the breakfast ready.

Civilization, when they found it just before noon, proved to be a village nestled into a shallow hollow in the earth. As they topped the rise just before the hollow, Will and John both stopped to take in the long main drag of façade-fronted buildings, with three intersecting side streets lined with residences. "That is not a supply post," John said flatly.

"Must be more ranchers out here than I thought," Will admitted. "But it'll make shopping for supplies easier. And a better chance for finding certain posters."

John frowned, but nodded. "Don't forget more candy."

Will smiled. "Top of my list. Stay safe. Don't let anyone see you."

"You stay out of trouble." John's hand lifted as if he meant to reach out to Will, but his eyes flicked back to Katie, precariously perched on Will's saddlebags, and the hand dropped. "Don't take too long."

"We won't. Katie, you got a good grip?" Will felt a nod against his back and, with one quick glance back at John, he kicked Clarence into a canter.

After four years in Boston, Will found that all but the biggest of Western cities looked small to his eyes. Objectively speaking, however, he had to admit that this particular town was of a significant size. Certainly it was larger than the small town that had been the supply point for his own ranch; there had to be logging or mining in the area to keep a town of this size in business. No less than five saloons dotted the street, as well as a bank, two hotels, a general store with a post office shingle hanging in the window, a hardware store, an outfitter, a barber, a restaurant, and, oddly, a dress shop. Will's gaze lingered on that latter establishment, but he couldn't imagine it would have ready-made dresses available and he wasn't about to wait for a dress to be tailored for the girl. Whatever was available in the general store would have to suffice.

There was also a sheriff's station and Will gave that building more consideration. The smart thing to do, what he _should_ do, was to go straight into that station, report the murder of Katie's family, and use that opportunity to look for any wanted posters. If he did that, however, the girl would be immediately removed from Will's care, as he wasn't her blood kin. That was not acceptable. Not after all of the terrible tales John had shared about his life in the orphanage.

Not that Will had come around to the idea of adopting the girl himself. The very idea of two men living with a young girl was positively indecent. Even if she was related to them, questions would be raised. Without a blood connection, the question was an impossible one.

Unfortunately, that didn't leave Will with a clear path forward. It would be one thing if Katie was a happy, healthy girl; she was pretty enough and fairly young and there undoubtedly would be families in Boston who would want to adopt her. A traumatized, disfigured child, on the other hand, would not be very appealing to prospective families. Will could all too easily see how the girl could end up in a situation that would make John's orphanage look like a paradise.

The only thing he was sure of was that he couldn't risk revealing Katie's identity to a stranger. Mrs. Potter would hopefully know what to do, if they could get the girl to her, and if she failed them, both Will and John – especially John – had influence in Boston. The girl would find a home, a happy one.

At the moment, however, it would be unfortunate if anyone in town realized that he and Katie were strangers to one another, so as soon as Clarence was safely stabled for the afternoon, Will pulled Katie into the shadow of the barn and gracelessly crouched down before her. "Katie, before we go to the store, I need to ask a favor. If anyone asks me who you are, I'm going to tell them you're my niece. What I need you to do is agree with me, okay? If they ask if you are my niece, you just nod. Can you do that for me?"

Katie frowned. Will sighed. "It's lying, I know. But it's really important that no one knows we're not kin. If they find out, they'll take you away." An unpleasant thought occurred to him. "Unless you don't want to stay with us?" After all, she was never meant to be a prisoner. Fortunately, Katie shook her head rigorously, relieving Will's mind. "Then I'm afraid we're going to have to be liberal with the truth. Hopefully no one will ask, but if they do, are you willing to pretend to be my niece?"

This time Katie nodded without hesitation.

"Good girl." Will pushed himself back to his feet with a wince. "Come on. We have a lot of supplies to buy."

The next few hours were a blur of goods and the men and women who sold them. They started at the general store, where Will found a small selection of ready-made dresses. The sizes left much to be desired, however; clearly most of the local girls made their own clothes. In the end, he had to pay the shopkeeper an extra two dollars to hem the skirt; the end result was a plain patterned dress that probably would've been cheaper to buy at the dressmaker, if not faster.

As the plump woman measured Katie's legs, Will looked through the other ready made clothes and he hesitated over the boys' trousers and shirts. Fingering the rough canvas cloth, he came to a decision. "I think we'd like a set of these as well." When the woman's eyebrows shot up, he added, "Everything in the wagon was lost in the fire. Katie's about the same size as her brother."

Thankfully, despite all of Will's dire predictions, Katie did not spontaneously choose this moment to begin speaking again and the woman accepted the explanation without further comment. She also accepted a long list of additional supplies that they would need, to be picked up on their way out of town.

Next stop was the livestock market, which was mostly empty this time of year, but which had a few horses for sale. Will didn't have John's eye for horseflesh, but he looked over the stock carefully and dutifully checked the teeth of a few of the more docile animals. In the end he chose a plodding pony that trundled placidly around the paddock. John would undoubtedly mock Will for his choice, but the pony looked far too sedate to ever spook with a young child on its back and besides, Katie's tight shoulders softened slightly as the pony lipped affectionately at her fingers.

Packhorse in tow, they went to the outfitters for a saddle, bags, bedroll, and a third set of tin eating utensils. As Will mulled over the options for each, he noticed Katie hovering near a pile of silk handkerchiefs that were no doubt aimed for greenhorns and the gentlemen miners that periodically came west. Some of the clothes were dyed in jewel-bright colors, and Katie's eyes lingered most lovingly on a bright red square of fabric. Will told himself that a silk handkerchief was a ridiculous item in the dry and dusty west. An indulgent piece of frippery. A waste of money. That didn't stop him from adding one to the top of his pile of purchases and the look on Katie's face when he handed it to her made it impossible to regret his decision.

Once outside, Katie carefully folded her present and tucked it away in the pocket of her filthy dress. A corner of the handkerchief stuck out of the pocket, looking ridiculous against the cheap flower-patterned cotton, but Katie clearly didn't care. Actually, she almost looked happy as they walked along the boardwalk, heading back to the general store with the new saddlebags draped over Will's shoulder, ready to be filled.

Suddenly, Katie tensed and ducked behind Will. Will managed not to startle at the abrupt movement, but he frowned at the sudden shift in her behavior and looked around to see what might've spooked her. 

Nothing immediately caught his eye. It was a weekday, which meant thinner crowds – the cowboys usually managed to spend most of their Friday pay during the weekends – and more women than men. Will couldn't imagine why Katie would be afraid of any of the women, so he focused on the men: mostly travelers, with the odd prospector and rancher. Layabouts and scoundrels would be in one of the town saloons, but those were farther down the street and this time of day the rail in front of the saloons was empty, so the most obvious suspects weren't the problem.

Unfortunately, none of the other men on the street looked particularly dangerous either. Will considered his options and whispered, "Katie, I'm going to back up into the door behind me. If you want to stay hidden, you should back up, too. Touch my arm if you understand." Grubby fingers brushed over his elbow. "Good. I'm backing up now."

The entire affair proved less awkward than Will feared, mainly because the door of the building – the bank, as it turned out – was already open and because Katie ducked through the door without waiting for Will. Impediment removed, Will didn't bother with backing up and turned to walk in after her.

Inside it was cool and quiet, despite the half dozen people lined up at the counter. Will had noticed that about banks; quieter than libraries, most of them. This particular specimen looked to be rather more lavish than most western banks: the ceiling was high enough that Will couldn't touch it with his arms stretched up, windows were cut into the walls both at the front of the building and at the side, and there were two tellers manning the counter, with a shiny brass scale between them that meant it was mining that was feeding the town, probably gold, maybe silver.

Both tellers were busy with scruffy, unwashed men; Will could smell them from where he was standing by the door. Three or four other people were standing in line, and Will had just enough time to see that one of them was a well-dressed woman when his attention was caught by the way that Katie immediately ran over to a corner and tucked herself into a little ball in the space beneath the front and side window.

Will frowned, but the silence of the room kept him from speaking out loud. Instead he moved closer to her and murmured, just barely above his breath, "Katie, I need you to tell me why you're so scared." Of course she didn't respond, so he added, "If you don't tell me, I can't protect you from him. Or her. Or ... it." He sighed. "You don't have to actually say anything. Just point me in the right direction." 

Katie considered that for a second before rising to her knees and leaning forward to point out the window. Will followed her pointing finger to a dandy man, dressed in silks and finery better suited for a woman's fancy dress than a man's suit. "Him?" Will said doubtfully, pointing at the dandy. Katie nodded and retreated back to her corner. "Why?"

Katie just whimpered and wrapped her arms around herself, rocking slightly.

Will's stomach turned queasy. "He's not – he's not the one who hurt your family, is he?"

She nodded. Will cursed quietly, then cursed again more loudly as he realized the dandy man was moving in the direction of the bank. Behind him, he heard a feminine voice murmuring disapprovingly.

Ignoring the commotion he was causing, Will dropped the saddlebags and stripped off his coat. He handed it to Katie. "Sit as far back in the corner as possible and cover yourself with that. No matter what you hear, you stay covered, all right?" 

Katie nodded quickly and pushed even farther back into the corner under the windows. As soon as she stopped moving Will draped the saddlebags over her, making it look like nothing more than a pile of supplies waiting for its owner to finish his banking.

Not a moment too soon, either; Will had just shifted over to stand at the back of the line when the dandy man stepped inside. "My, my, my," the man said. "What a charming little bank." He managed to sound somewhat menacing, despite the fact that he was wearing a scarlet bowtie, a bright green waistcoat, and what looked to be an eagle's feather glued to the side of his bowler.

Far more menacing, however, were the two men who entered the bank and flanked him. The new arrivals were more plainly dressed in cotton shirts without cuffs or collars and rough-hewn laborers pants. All of which went right out of Will's mind the moment the two men pulled their guns.

"Gentlemen – and lady," the dandy man proclaimed, winking at the sole female. The lady was dressed a cut above what Will would expect to see out west, and her big eyes and patrician nose put him in the mind of some of the pretty things that threw themselves at John in Boston. This woman didn't look much like the type to throw herself at anyone, however, and she looked right down that long straight nose at the dandy, decidedly unimpressed. 

The dandy's smile slipped for a moment, though Will could hardly imagine how the dandy could be so surprised that a lady wouldn't be impressed with his tacky finery. The man recovered, however, and plastered on a wide, fake-looking grin as he continued on with his patter. "As I'm sure you're already well aware, we are the Gentlemen Robbers! My name is Charming Charlie Charleston and I'll be your host for this robbery."

Will felt his eyebrows trying to reach his hairline. Charming Charlie? Gentlemen robbers? Was the man serious? Frankly, it was hard to imagine that these men were really the people who had attacked Katie's family. They didn't seem competent enough, especially after years of writing John's exploits.

Charming Charlie stepped forward toward the line, his eyes moving right past Will to the woman. Behind him, the two men with guns bypassed the line and went to the counter. One held his gun on the tellers, while the other jumped over the counter with surprising nimbleness. Their movements were quick and practiced, as if they'd gone through these exact same motions many times before, but Will's attention was drawn away from them and back to the dandy as the overdressed man pulled a canvas bag from his pocket and held it out to the portly, expensively dressed gentleman standing next to the woman. "Money, watch, jewelry," Charlie said, clearly speaking to the man, though his eyes were locked on the woman. "Anything that might fetch a fair price."

The portly man scowled. "This watch is a family heirloom. It's been in my family for generations."

Charming Charlie finally turned from the woman, his attention moving down to the watch chain that stretched across the other man's stomach. The portly man's face started to turn red as Charlie reached out with one finger to lift the watch out of its pocket by the chain. "How dare you –"

"No!" Charlie shouted. Will flinched in surprise at the yell. "How dare you?" Charlie continued. "You and your ilk, you selfish overfed worms with your hoarded wealth." Charlie's hand came up to grip the portly man's shoulder and the man winced. "Bastards like you are everything that is wrong with this country!" The older man blustered, but didn't have a chance to say anything more before Charming Charlie punched him in the stomach. When Charlie pulled back his fist, there was blood everywhere, and the glint of a knife was visible between his fingers. 

Charlie tutted, his voice suddenly sharp and clear again, with none of the gravelly hate that had filled his last sentence. "Honestly now, look what you made me do." Looking calm as could be, he whipped a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood on his hands. The fabric wasn't doing much good, however, and the blood mostly ended up smeared over his fingers. With a sigh, Charlie discarded the stained hanky and reached for another, completely ignoring the wounded man bleeding out at his feet or the way that the bank patrons were staring on in horror.

Will swore under his breath and shifted back slowly, trying to get a better look out of the windows. If the gang only consisted of these three men, then maybe all of the patrons could rush the robbers at the same time and –

There was a man outside standing right next to the window, dressed much the same as the two robbers at the counter. He was looking in through the glass with a grim expression on his face that turned positively dire when he caught sight of Will looking out, and he pulled the side of his jacket back, exposing a weapon. 

Will swore again and turned back toward the bank, where Charlie had apparently abandoned his attempts to clean his knife and had now sidled up to the woman. He reached out and took a gloved hand with his blood-streaked one. His lips curled up in a smile that might've been charming once upon a time, but now looked like the rictus of death. "My goodness. I would never have imagined that I would find such a lovely prairie rose in such a dusty little town." He lifted the gloved hand to his lips. 

The woman paled and her throat worked as she swallowed, but her voice was clear and crisp when she spoke. "You will unhand me, sir, or I will scream."

Charlie's awful smile turned conspiratorially. "I'll tell you a secret, my dear. My friend Hank – the gentleman over there next to the safe – well, he rather enjoys it when a woman screams. Not the most socially understood preference, but I always thought it a bit hard that he should be denied a woman's touch just because of a few eccentricities. We make allowances." Will felt the contents of his stomach curdle as Charlie added. "You know, you're just the type of woman he likes best."

The woman was holding herself so rigidly now that she looked like a sharp blow would shatter her. Her hand was still in the grip of Charlie's and her lips were pressed tight enough that they were nearly white. Will ached to go to her, to fight the dandy bastard off, but he was painfully aware of the barely-hidden girl in the corner. The thought of what would happen to Katie if Will got himself killed was unbearable.

Suddenly the woman pursed her lips and spit in Charlie's eye. As he stumbled back, wiping at his eye and leaving streaks of blood on his face, she screamed.

Charlie stood upright, his face furious and his hands clenched into fists. "You cunt!"

The woman just stared at him, her head held high. Charlie snarled and lunged at her and Will had just taken a step forward to intervene when the window next to him shattered and the air filled with the sound of gunfire.

Will dove into the corner of the room, covering Katie as best he could; coat, saddlebags and all. Behind him he could hear screams and the loud retorts of half a dozen revolvers going off, the cacophony echoing off of the high ceilings and building up on itself until the sound was so loud Will almost felt like he could reach out and touch it. Acrid gunsmoke teased its way into Will's nose and his spine clenched as he anticipated the hot blaze of a bullet burrowing into his back.

Suddenly the room fell silent. Will's ears burned with the lack of sound and for a second he stayed where he was, just in case the lull was a temporary one. The need to know what had happened was too great, however, and he lifted his head. From where he was crouched, he could see out the shattered window, where two men were lying dead in the street. Standing over their bodies was John.

Will sucked in a startled breath of air and stood up abruptly, turning around to take in the aftermath inside the bank. Charming Charlie Charleston and his two accomplices were lying dead. The man Charlie had knifed looked like he might be dead, too. All of the other people in the bank were slowly pushing themselves to their feet, looking dazed.

All of them except for the woman, who was lying on the floor, curled up on her side.

Dread pieced Will's gut as he moved toward her, feeling as if he was moving slower than usual, as if he was wading through a river of molasses. "Ma'am," he said thickly, his throat so tight it was hard to force the word out. "Ma'am, are you all right?"

The woman moaned and turned over onto her back, revealing the knife sticking out of her gut.

Will hissed and fell to his knees next to the woman, ignoring the pain that immediately shot up his bad thigh. "Stay still," he ordered as he wrapped his hand around the handle of the knife. He didn't give her time to think or question before wrenching it out with one sharp pull. Blood immediately bubbled out of her stomach like water from a spring and Will flattened his hands over the wound, trying to hold in as much blood as he could.

All around him, men were slowly climbing to their feet, looking dazed and confused. "Help me!" Will shouted at them. "Someone get me a goddamn doctor!"

One of the others, a young man wearing miner's clothing, ran out the door.

Will turned his attention back to the woman. She was staring back at him, her eyes locked on his. "No need for the boy to rush," she rasped. "I'm dying."

"Don't you say that," Will choked out. "Don't you dare say that."

The woman's lips turned up and Will took some comfort from that, and from the lack of blood staining those lips. Her face was mighty pale, however, and only getting paler as blood slid slickly through Will's fingers and puddled on the floor. So much goddamn blood: Will could feel it soaking through the legs of his pants, could feel the warmth of it as it ran through his fingers.

Will drew in a shaky breath. "Is there anyone I can get for you? Your husband, maybe?" 

The woman turned her head slightly, in the direction of the portly man. "My husband's right here beside me," she murmured. "And I'll be joining him soon."

Will looked over to see that the portly man had definitely gone from this world. The writer in him noted that the dead man looked rather grey to be with this fine woman and immediately tried to come up with a story for them, for why such a lovely woman had married such an older man, for how the two of them had ended up in a small town thirty miles from the nearest railroad, for what the two of them were doing that had resulted in them having the misfortune to be in this precise bank at this precise time.

Then the woman gasped and Will pushed his curiosity aside. "Stay with me, ma'am. The doctor'll be here soon." Please let the doctor come soon. Let that be why the boy had run out of the bank.

The woman gasped again. "It's time," she breathed, so softly that Will could barely hear the words. "Oh, Annabelle." Her eyes widened for just a moment, then went dull and flat. The blood springing out from under Will's hands, which had been pumping out slower for the last minute or so, stopped entirely.

Will sat back on his heels, his arms dropping down to lay limply against his sides. He could hear a fly buzzing somewhere in the room, but couldn't take his eyes away from the woman's body.

The door to the bank burst open and rough hands dragged Will away from the woman. Will didn't protest as a grizzled man with a black bag knelt down next to the body and put his fingers on its throat. "Too late," the doctor said, reaching up to close the woman's eyes before going over to do the same for the man. "Might as well load them up. I'll put them in my cellar until Jedediah gets back from visiting his sister."

Some of what Will was feeling must've shown on his face, because a voice next to him added, "Jedediah's the coffinmaker." 

Will looked over to see who was speaking and found half a dozen men were crowded into the room. One of them had a badge pinned to his lapel. "You okay, son?" the sheriff asked, though he couldn't have been much more than a year or two older than Will.

Will glanced around the room, seeing the bodies of the three robbers and the husband and wife. There was no one visible behind the counter. "The tellers?" he rasped.

"They're fine. Went out the back door when the shooting started."

Will nodded numbly. "The shooting – was that you?"

"I was one of the ones shooting but, truth be told, most of the actual killing was done by a gunman. I would've shaken his hand but he didn't stick around long enough."

"Not someone from town?"

"Nope. Real lucky he was passing through, I guess."

Will frowned. The words themselves didn't sound so dangerous, but there was something in the sheriff's tone. He turned to see the sheriff staring right at him, a speculative look on his face. "Yes, sir," the man said. "Real lucky."

Dammit. Will reached up to rub his face, but stopped as he saw his hands were gloved in red. He dropped them with a sigh. "I'm guessing you have some questions for me."

"Just a few."

Will stared at the floor for a moment, considering. On the one hand, he hadn't done anything wrong and he wasn't seriously worried about himself. On the other hand, he had no idea where John was, Katie was still hiding in the corner, and Will was covered in a dead woman's blood. At that moment, the last thing he wanted to do was answer questions.

Still, this was a perfect excuse to see the inside of the sheriff's office.

Will dragged himself to his feet, feeling his bad leg protest sharply. He didn't miss the way the sheriff glanced down at Will's wince, nor the way he watched Will limp over to the corner of the room. "Katie, you still alive?" Will asked quietly as he rifled through the meager contents of the saddlebag. The coat moved slightly, like it was being brushed by a young girl's nodding head. "Good. I'm going over to the sheriff's office. As soon as it gets quiet in here, I want you to take the bags and my coat and head north to where we were going to meet up with John. Can you do that for me?" 

A bit of a pause, then the coat shifted again.

"Be careful," Will added as he pulled an empty hand out of the saddlebag, his fingers curled up in a loose fist. He slid that hand into his pocket as he turned to the sheriff. “Okay, I'm ready."

The sheriff's eyebrows lifted. "Don't want to bring your supplies?"

"I got my money," Will said. "Nothing else in there worth much. Besides, I want to wash the blood off before I spread it any further."

The sheriff acknowledged the merits of the statement and led Will out the door. At the last moment, Will looked back to see the rest of the men stacking up the bodies of the dead in preparation for hauling them out the door. No one seemed to be looking at the pile of covered girl in the corner.

Reassured, Will let himself be led away.

~~~

The sheriff's office wasn't anything fancy: raw unpainted wooden floor and walls, with a rough-hewn desk and chairs and two small cells in the back. The room was clean, however, and the wanted posters that dotted the wall were neatly organized. Will tried to look casual as he ran his eyes over the posters; none of them had a close likeness of John, but the fancy printing made it impossible for him to unobtrusively read the names as he skimmed over the pictures.

"Looking for anyone in particular?" the sheriff asked.

Will felt his face heat. "Just curious. I write frontier novels."

The sheriff sat behind the desk and gestured for Will to take the other chair. Will couldn't help but notice that the guest seat looked considerably less comfortable than the sheriff's. "Really now? Any I might've heard of?"

"Ah ... the John Anderson novels? Though I've recently begun working on a mystery novel set in Boston. Don't have to go as far for research."

"Is that why you're here? For research?"

"Partially. I used to have a ranch in Arizona and figured riding out there from Omaha might give me some ideas for my next book."

The sheriff pulled a cigarillo out of his pocket and took his time lighting it. Will did his best not to squirm. "That's a long ride."

"It is," Will said quickly. "But I just turned in my latest manuscript and my son just went abroad. I needed to fill some time."

"Hm." The sheriff eyed Will through the smoky haze of his cigarillo. When he spoke again, however, it was to ask what happened at the bank. Will tried to hide his relief as he gave as detailed an account as possible, leaving out nothing aside from Katie's presence. When he finished the tale, he added, "The woman – when she died she was asking for someone named Annabelle. Do you know who that might be?"

The sheriff shook his head. "Didn't know either of those folks all that well. They just arrived a few weeks ago, looking to be some kinda gentlemen miners." 

Will winced. "You get many of those?"

"Some. Easterners who come out seem to think that the only kind of mines that exist are metal mines and tend to be mighty disappointed when they find out we mostly mine cement. Usually they head south to the copper and silver mines near the border."

"But this couple chose to stay."

"They might've been planning to stake a claim. I understand they were waiting for a check to clear."

That was undoubtedly why they were at the bank. Will shook his head.

"I also understand that you were going about town with a young girl this morning." Will tensed. "What happened to her?"

Will opened his mouth to answer, then realized that he'd well and truly painted himself into a corner. When he'd told Katie to run, he had been acting on instinct, wanting her far away from the death and ugly memories that that bank had held. It hadn't occurred to him that the sheriff would want to question him about what had happened, nor that anyone in town would've paid enough attention to him and Katie to have noticed her disappearance.

He was still trying to come up with an answer when the sheriff added, "What about the gunman? Did you happen to know him?"

Will smothered his first instinct, which was to offer a quick and decisive _no_ , and said as calmly as he could, "I don't know. I didn't see him. As for the girl –" he sighed " – she was in the bank with me."

The sheriff's eyes sharpened behind the smoke. "I didn't see her there."

"She was in the corner, hiding under my coat and saddlebags."

"And you left her there?" the sheriff said incredulously.

"Actually, I told her to run the moment the coast was clear." Will managed a twisted smile. "I thought if you knew about her, you'd try and take her. I can't have that."

"Really," the sheriff said dryly. "And why is that?"

So Will told another story, this one of his finding Katie's dead family and their burned out wagon. This time he left out any mention of John, but as there was no evidence of him and John actually knowing each other – Will was starting to think that the sheriff had just mentioned the gunman to throw Will off balance about Katie – the sheriff didn't seem as suspicious as before. At least, not suspicious about there being anything missing from the story. The way his eyes narrowed as Will talked about being alone with Katie held plenty of suspicion.

"Why didn't you report the murders?" the sheriff asked the moment Will's story was done. "That should've been the first thing you did when you came into this town."

"I know," Will admitted. "I wanted to. But I wasn't going to let strangers take Katie away from me." He drew in his breath and prepared to lie as he'd never lied before. "Truth is, I grew up in an orphanage. I know what those places are like, especially for a girl. And a girl like Katie, who is traumatized and disfigured and mute – her life wouldn't be worth living."

"And it'll be better with you, will it?"

"She's not going to live with me. It wouldn't be appropriate." The sheriff laughed lightly at that, for some reason, but Will ignored it and blundered on. "My old ranch is a school for orphans. It's run by a woman I trust. I was going to leave Katie with her."

The sheriff went still. "This ranch – it wouldn't have been in Dead Horse, would it?"

Will tensed. "Why?"

"Damn," the sheriff said, dropping the cigarillo into a mug on the desk. He suddenly looked ten years older. "A couple of boys, teenagers, showed up in town a few months ago. Said they were from a school in Dead Horse."

"They ran away?" Will asked, almost hopefully.

"No. They said the school marm had made them leave, made all of the boys leave. She wouldn't tell them why. Not long after, we got a telegraph. Typhoid wiped out the whole town."

Will fell back into his chair. "Shit."

"Amen." The sheriff lit another cigarillo, but this time he puffed on it without extra drama. "Still planning on taking the girl with you?"

"We were planning on picking up the train in Amarillo; guess I'll be heading east instead of west. Long as she's in Boston, I can keep an eye on her."

The sheriff nodded. "Should probably go, then. I hate to think of a little girl all alone outside of town."

Will sighed and stood up. "Thank you, sheriff."

"Thank you, Mr. Connors." When Will stared at him, the sheriff grinned. "I'm rather partial to those John Anderson books. Silly, but enjoyable all the same. Never thought I'd get to meet the author."

"Never thought I'd meet many folks out west who read them," Will admitted. "They're mostly meant for people who've never crossed the Mississippi." After a moment, he added, "You don't happen to have a wanted poster for Mr. Anderson, do you? I've never seen one up close."

"Wish I did, so I could have you sign it. But he never came this far east and he hasn't robbed so much as a quilting circle in years now. Too many posters coming in to keep any that are that out of date."

Will nodded, hiding his relief, and turned to leave. At the door, he turned back. "One more thing, sheriff. That woman who died today – you don't happen to know her name, do you?" The sheriff's eyebrows raised in question. "I was thinking I could maybe track Annabelle down, tell her what happened."

"Awful kindly of you," the sheriff said, though there wasn't much more than a hint of suspicion in his voice. "Believe they were known as the Pendergasts. I'm guessing they came from one of the bigger cities back east. Seemed mighty shocked at how slim the pickings were at our general store."

Since Will had considered the general store to be surprisingly well stocked, he wondered at the couple's expectations. Clearly they hadn't been out west before, which might aid in finding them again. With that in mind, Will nodded to the sheriff and went off to find a telegraph.

~~~

When Will finally made it to the meeting site south of town, it was nearly dusk and he was ready to drop from exhaustion. He'd barely had a chance to slip off Clarence's back, however, before a girl-sized cannonball slammed into his side and proceeded to try and squeeze the stuffing out of him. 

"We were getting worried," John said, though he didn't move from his seat on the other side of the fire. In the uncertain light his shadowed eyes looked like pools of darkness.

"Sheriff had some questions," Will said, hoisting the girl up to return her hug. She promptly latched her arms around his neck and refused to let go. "Then I had to pick up the supplies." And to have a bath to wash the blood off, not that he would say so with the girl so close to hand.

"What'd the sheriff want to know?"

"If I knew you." Will gave Katie one last squeeze, then put her down gently but firmly so he could tend to Clarence and the new packhorse. The girl stayed close to his side the entire time, so close that he nearly tripped over her. 

"What'd you tell him?"

There was suspicion in John's voice and Will sighed. "That I didn't know because I hadn't seen you, but that it wasn't likely. I think he believed me. He seemed more curious about where Katie went to and what she was doing with me."

John grunted and went back to poking at the fire.

A mite annoyed by the man's silence, not to mention the fact that he wasn't helping at all with either the horses or the girl, Will didn't speak again as he stripped all of the equipment off of Clarence and wiped him and the packhorse down. Clarence was unusually playful, possibly due to the day in a barn with a bucket of oats, which didn't help Will's mood in the slightest. He staked the two of them down as quickly as possible and dragged the food bags over to the fire. 

Dinner was quiet, both in the preparation and the eating. Will didn't have much appetite; every time he blinked he saw Mrs. Pendergast's face and felt the hot press of blood welling up under his palms. His shirt cuffs were liberally stained with the stuff and after the hundredth or so time that his eye caught on the dark patches, he ripped them off and threw them into the fire. 

"The sheriff said the ranch is gone," Will said abruptly, unable to take the silence anymore and desperate to change the direction of his thoughts.

"What?" John said incredulously.

"Typhoid, apparently. Wiped out the whole town."

"How do they know? If everyone's dead, who told them that everyone died?"

"I was wondering about that, too," Will admitted. "It seems odd that no one at all survived. There were several hundred people between the town and the ranches and they weren't all drinking the same water."

"So we're still planning on going to the ranch?"

"You think we shouldn't?"

John threw a stick at the fire, kicking up a spray of sparks. "Wasn't sure I was going to see you at all."

Will turned to stare. "What?"

"I broke my promise."

"You were saving my life," Will said flatly. "And Katie's life and the life of everyone else in that bank. You have nothing to apologize for." He turned back to the fire. "If anyone here is at fault, it's me."

John snorted. "I can't see how. You kept Katie safe, you tried to save that woman –"

"That woman died because of me!"

"What the hell are you talking about, Will?"

Will glared at him. "Didn't you recognize them? Those were the same men that killed Katie's family."

John opened his mouth, then closed it again. "That dandy fellow did look kinda familiar." When Will continued to glare, John added, "I didn't get a good look at him! You told me to hide in the alleys; I didn't come out until I heard the woman scream."

Will remembered that moment in exquisite, painful clarity. The woman had screamed, Charlie had hit her, and then the shooting had started. Seconds had passed, at most. "It was them," Will said, more quietly. "Katie recognized them. And if I'd just let you kill them before, when you wanted to, that woman and her husband would still be alive."

"Maybe, maybe not," John said. "You can't know the future."

"I can damn well know that if you'd killed Charming Charlie a week ago, he wouldn't have killed a woman today!"

"Maybe someone else would have. Banks get robbed all the time."

"Why are you trying to talk me out of my guilt? You were the one who wanted to kill him in the first place!"

"Because I love you," John said bluntly, neatly puncturing the tension between the two of them. "And because you're a good man, Will, the best man I've ever known."

Will's eyes burned. "I love you, too, John," he said softly, acutely aware that he'd never said those words before, not to John. They stared at each other in the firelight and Will ached, desperately wanting to reach out and touch John's face, but being held back for some urgent reason, though at that moment he couldn't have said what that reason was.

They might've stayed there forever, staring their feelings at each other, if one of the horses hadn't snorted. Will startled at the sound and John twisted around so he was facing the fire. "Katie needs to be put to bed," he said quietly.

Katie. Right. Will sucked in a deep breath, trying to loosen his tight chest, and pushed himself to his feet. "We're not done talking," he said firmly as he went off to take care of the girl.

When he came back to the fire, John was stretched out on his bedroll, eyes shut and back turned away from Will.

~~~

Will woke to a scream. For a moment he thought the scream was a continuation of his dream; the woman had just spit in Charlie's eye. Then the scream came again and Will bolted to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John doing the same, but Will put that aside as he ran over to where Katie was lying on her brand new bedroll. The quilt, which had been carefully tucked in around Katie's tiny body when Will had put her to bed, was now rumpled and half in the dirt and the hair around her face was dark with sweat. She was whimpering now, not screaming, and somehow those quiet, pained noises were even worse than her yells. Will fell to his knees next to her and pulled the little girl into an embrace, murmuring, "It's okay. You're okay now."

Katie had had nightmares before. How could she not? Before, however, she'd been mostly quiet in her dreams. If Will was awake when the nightmares started, he would sooth her equally quietly and she would drift back to a peaceful sleep. He suspected there were a lot of times that he wasn't awake when the nightmares started, but she always looked alert enough in the mornings so he didn't worry.

He was worried now, even more so when Katie started to thrash in his arms. "Shh," he said, shooting a desperate look over her shoulder at John.

"Wake her up," John said, his voice sounding hoarse and raw. "Nightmares like that – waking her up is a kindness."

Trusting that John knew what he was talking about, Will shook the girl roughly. "Katie. Katie, wake up."

Katie gasped and her eyes open. A second later they filled with tears and she buried her face in Will's chest as she sobbed.

Crying children was something Will had experience with; Tommy was a happy child but he was plenty clumsy, especially when he was younger. Will had never heard of a child who had had more scraped knees than Tommy Connors. With Tommy in mind, Will rocked Katie and rubbed his hands in circles on her back and whispered soothing words in her ear. John reached out a couple of times to touch Katie's hair gently, only to awkwardly remove it a moment later. Will raised an eyebrow at him and John shrugged uncomfortably. "Don't spend much time around crying females."

Will nodded and hitched Katie up just a bit higher. Her sobbing was getting softer and her body was going loose; he wasn't surprised when she went limp a moment later. Carefully, he tucked her back in and this time John didn't look uncomfortable when he pushed Katie's hair off her forehead.

"She probably needed that," John said.

"I was kind of worried about her not crying," Will admitted. "That was a long time in coming."

They watched her a bit longer, but the nightmares didn't seem to be returning. "Tomorrow's going to be a long day," John muttered as they made their way back to their bedrolls.

"Not just tomorrow," Will replied, flopping back. "And not just the day after that, either."


	6. Chapter 6

Everyone was in a foul mood the following morning. John stuck his face in his coffee and wouldn't speak to anyone, Katie refused to eat breakfast or roll up her bedding, and Will finally lost his temper and shouted that the two of them could pack up the camp themselves for once before mounting Clarence and riding off alone.

He didn't go very fast and the others caught up quickly, but the strain of that argument weighed them all down as they rode hard for Amarillo. Tempers were not improved when they learned they'd missed the last west-bound train for the day and when they arrived at the nearest hotel, Will pushed John aside and slapped a bill on the counter. "We need two rooms with a connecting door."

The man didn't even blink, just pushed over the guest ledger. "Please sign in for yourself and your guests." Will brushed off John's hand and did that as well.

As they climbed the stairs to the third floor, Will turned to Katie. "John and I have to have a bit of a talk, so we're going to keep the connecting door shut for a bit. Do not let _anyone_ aside from us into your room, understand?"

Katie nodded her head, her eyes glued to the floor.

"Good. Once our talk is done, we'll open the connecting door. If you need us before then, bang on the wall."

Katie agreed to that as well, though her head was still ducked down. Will felt a twinge of guilt; the girl had been a brat today, but she was young and sensitive. He and John would have to hold on a little tighter to their tempers when she was around.

Once they reached the third floor, however, Katie went right out of Will's mind. He barely kept himself together well enough to make sure she was safely locked away in her room before fumbling the next door open. It didn't help that John was standing so close behind him that he could feel the man's heat through his clothing.

The moment the latch on their door shut, Will and John fell on each other like ravening wolves. Will fought to tear off John's damned jacket, while John went straight for Will's fly. John achieved his goal first and Will lost track of what he was doing as John gave his cock a few rough jerks. "I want you to fuck me," John said hotly, his breath washing over Will's ear. "I want you to pound me into the mattress."

" _Yes_ ," Will hissed back and he dragged John to the bed.

By the time they stumbled back out of bed, it was full dark outside and Will was sore and sated, enough so that he didn't have to fight to find a smile when he opened the connecting door between the two rooms. "Hey, Katie, are you ready for some dinner?"

No response of course; more terrifying was the lack of any young girls immediately visible. Will's heart clenched as he lunged forward into the room. "Katie?"

The soft rustling of cloth dragged his attention to the corner between the two rooms, where Katie was mostly hidden by the open door. She was curled up into a ball, and her eyes were hidden between her knees.

"Katie, what happened? Are you all right?" She nodded, slowly, and Will belatedly thought to wonder just how thick the walls were in this place. "Did you hear something scary?"

She shrugged and kept her eyes hidden. Will sighed and moved to sit down next to her. "It wasn't bad, what John and I were doing. Sometimes we just talk things out in ... in a physical way." Hesitantly he added, "Didn't your mommy and daddy ever need time alone after a fight?" She didn't make any response. Will sighed again and carefully reached out to put a hand on her back. He was surprised and gratified when she immediately uncurled from her ball and shifted over to tuck herself into Will's side, and he didn't hesitate to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

They sat that way for a while, neither one making a noise. Eventually John stuck his head in the door. "I thought we were going for dinner."

"We are," Will reassured him. "Katie just heard some things that upset her."

John's eyes widened. Will nodded. John winced and pulled back into their room.

"I think it's time to eat," Will said, gently giving Katie one last squeeze before letting her go. "You go get dressed in your new clothes now, okay?"

Katie nodded, but she didn't shift away until Will started to ease himself to his feet. This time, he made sure the connecting door between the rooms wasn't completely closed, though he left only a crack between the rooms for privacy. 

Mindful of that opening, he kept his voice quiet as he said to John, "I think we're damaging that girl even more."

John scoffed. "She's alive, her burns are healing, and she doesn't look like a skeleton anymore. We're doing fine."

"It's not her physical state I'm worried about," Will muttered, but he let the topic go and went to get himself dressed to go out.

Later that night, long after little girls should have been asleep in bed, Will felt the mattress shift underneath him. Cracking his eyes open just a fraction, he saw Katie curling up on the very edge of the bed. He considered leaving her there, but she'd get cold and, besides, it wasn't as if she could have missed that John was lying right next to Will. It seemed there were no more secrets left. With a sigh, he murmured, "Get under the covers," and let himself drift back off to sleep before seeing if she followed his orders.

There were no nightmares that night.

~~~

The train station in Amarillo wasn't anywhere near as nice as the one in New York City or even the one in Omaha, but Katie stared around her with her eyes wide and her mouth open and had to be guided around obstacles after the third time she'd fallen over someone else's luggage. Will and John, both considerably more relaxed than the day before, exchanged grins.

The ride itself was long, in large part because Katie abruptly decided to turn into a typical child, albeit a mute one. She ran up and down the train, she hid in the bathrooms, she pestered the porters. After the third time she was returned to their room after going off for a bathroom break that ended up lasting over an hour, Will sat her down next to the window and ordered her to practice her letters. By that point, he was so thoroughly frustrated he didn't even care that she sulked the entire time.

John moved close enough to whisper in Will's ear. "It's good that she's well enough to act badly."

Will shot him a blistering glare. John took his revenge by making Will do his exercises, which had the added benefit of getting Katie out of her sulks and keeping her entertained. 

Bisbee was something of a shock. This was partially because Will had never seen much of the city aside from the livestock auction on the outskirts, but also because the downtown commercial area was packed with new buildings and bustling streets. He'd heard that the Bisbee copper mines were doing well, but hadn't realized just how well. There were even a couple of fine hotels near the train station that tempted them to spend the night, but the need to see what had happened in Dead Horse, not to mention the two-day ride, motivated them to hit the trail.

Butterscotch had taken the train ride as well as was to be expected, which meant she was biting anyone and anything foolish enough to get within range of her teeth. This included hands filled with conciliatory candy, and after the third nip even John gave up on appeasing her. Clarence and the packhorse steered clear as they rode out of town, no matter how much Will tried to bring them closer.

Once they were fully out of Bisbee, John slid off Butterscotch, gingerly tied her to a juniper tree, and saddled up the packhorse. Behind him, Will could feel Katie getting progressively more tense and she felt like a block of wood by the time John led the packhorse over. "Come on, girl, it's time for you to learn to ride."

There followed a rhythmic brushing against Will's back, which he suspected was a tiny nose attached to a vigorously shaking head. Will sighed and slipped off Clarence, being careful not to kick Katie in the head in the process. "He's right, Katie. You can't ride behind me forever."

She glared at him, looking thoroughly betrayed.

"It'll be fine, I promise," Will said. He held out his hand. "Come on down now."

Katie crossed her arms and shook her head emphatically, her little brow furrowing and her lips pursing.

Oh, yes. Will remembered that expression. Not fondly.

In the end, Will informed Katie that if she ever wanted to eat lunch again, she was going to get on the packhorse. After that, he left the actual lessons to John and spent the length of the lessons placating Clarence, who had been huffy when he'd gotten off the stockcar, for all that he'd been better behaved about it than certain other horses Will could name.

By the time they made it back on the trail they'd lost most of the day, which meant it would be at least two more nights before they'd reach the ranch. Still, the delight on Katie's face as she became confident enough to canter for the first time made the lost time easier to bear.

That night, Katie was asleep the moment her head hit the ground and Will and John took the opportunity for some candid conversation. "What do we do if the sheriff is right? Should we close down the school?"

John heaved a sigh. "I'd hate to do that. If nothing else, the water from the spring should be safe." He shook his head. "Still can't believe no one at all survived from the town. Stories like that make me think of ..."

"What?" Will asked as John trailed off. "Makes you think of what?"

"You remember me telling you about Tanner Stone?"

"The man who turned you into an outlaw and then killed everyone you cared about when you tried to get away?"

"Stupid question," John admitted. "Did you also remember that he used to run a town?"

"Of course. Prosper. You were the one to free them." Only to have the railroad come and burn the whole thing down a few years later, though there was no benefit in adding that out loud.

"Thing is, taking over a town isn't as straightforward as you might imagine. You can't just move in, announce you're in charge, and kill everyone who disagrees. Someone always escapes and tells tales. Even if someone didn't escape, people notice when a whole town disappears."

"People like the Texas Rangers," Will guessed.

"And the US Marshals. So if you're the kind of person who doesn't like that sort of attention –"

"– like a raping, murdering, bastard of an outlaw."

"– then you have to come up with some reason for the town to disappear."

"Like a deadly illness," Will realized. "But what about people escaping?"

"You spread word of the disease first and post the quarantine markers around the town." John shrugged. "People have been known to lie to make folks break quarantine. Usually they're doing it to help someone they love, but the consequences can be deadly. Stone took advantage of that fact."

"How'd he keep the townsfolk from fighting back?"

John smiled humorlessly. "Just how many gunslingers does your town have, Will?"

Will pondered that. "I can't think of one. But there are a lot of men who are good with a rifle. You have to be out here."

"But how many of them are willing to risk their lives, their families' lives, to fight back? No one liked living under Tanner's thumb, but it didn't ruin most people. He did kill all of the saloon owners when he took over their businesses and he raised the price of the liquor, but he lowered the price of the girls and anyone working for him drank and whored for free. If he wanted a steak, some rancher would be expected to give up a cow, but he didn't take the herd. Store owners caught the worst of it, since they had to give Tanner's men anything they asked for, free of charge."

"How did they even get supplies in, if the town was under quarantine?"

John smiled bitterly. "That's where Tanner was really clever. At first he had his men smuggling the supplies in at night. After a few months, though, once he was sure everyone had bought into the idea that the town was gone, he took a bunch of old lumber and general waste and had his men haul it out a few miles east. They scattered it about and burned it all. Then he changed the name of the town."

Will gaped at him. "What? How?"

"It was before I got there, but from what I heard it wasn't too hard. Just telegraph the postmaster general and request they add the town, with its new name, to the postal route. Then all the quarantine markers were dug up and the town had a new name and, if anyone asked, was a few miles west of the old town."

"But that's ridiculous! People know where towns are located."

"It wouldn't work for a big town, granted, but for a small town, especially a mining town or a supply post for ranchers – who really knows or cares about those towns except for the folks who live there? The average traveler is just passing through and won't know the landmarks well enough to tell exactly where they are, and the more experienced travelers can usually be convinced if an entire town is telling them they're wrong. Those that can't be convinced were killed."

"Damn."

"What was worse was what happened to townsfolk who went against Tanner's bidding. Anyone who fought back –" John swallowed hard. "If you tried to fight back, he didn't just kill you. He'd kill your sons, your parents, all your menfolk. And any women in the family were put to work in his saloons and brothels. Girls as young as Katie, pandered out until they were nothing more than hollow shells."

Will felt ill. "How did you ever stop him, then? If no one would help you, how did you free the town?"

"Actually, it was Tanner Stone who really brought down Tanner Stone. See, when you're holding a town hostage, you need enforcers, lots of 'em. Even after you got the townsfolk under control, you need to keep the enforcers around to keep anyone from getting ideas. Tanner had a dozen enforcers working for him, and at first they were happy enough drinking the free liquor and fucking the free girls and playing cards in the saloons with the pittance of money Tanner paid beyond the room, board, booze and girls. Thing is, you can only drink and whore and play cards so long before you start getting bored and a dozen bored, violent men is a powder keg ready to go off at the slightest spark. So Tanner decided to play a game. A tournament for gunslingers, with a big cash prize and a guaranteed job for anyone who made it to the top four who wasn't already working for him."

Will stared at him, appalled. "A gunslinger tournament? How many people ended up dead?"

"A lot," John said flatly. "Most of them at my hand."

Will's throat went tight. "That was when he brought you back, wasn't it? When he burned down that orphanage and killed all of your wards."

"Yeah," John said roughly. "I think he'd thought I'd gone soft, that this would be a good way to get rid of me before I could ever get it into my head to come after him." John's lips twisted. "He was wrong."


	7. Chapter 7

After that conversation, it wasn't much of a surprise that Will and John had equally sleepless nights. They rode easy that day, both in deference to Katie's inexperience and the men's exhaustion. That night, all three of them slept like the dead.

The next day, decisions had to be made. "I think we should go to the ranch first," Will offered over coffee and frybread. "If the sheriff was wrong about the town, Mrs. Potter can tell us what's going on. If he was right, we should at least bury the bodies."

"Any bodies'll need to be burned," John said. "And we should take the long way around town, just in case."

Will nodded his agreement and they saddled up the horses. With all three rested and their destination nearly in sight, they made good time. Soon enough, Will found himself spotting the familiar landmarks that meant they were close to his old home. As they crossed the main road into town, however, his stomach lurched. To the left of the road was a tall stake and tied to the top of the stake was a strip of tattered yellow cloth, fluttering in the afternoon breeze.

"John," Will said, his voice shaky.

"Doesn't necessarily mean anything," John said, though his voice wasn't fully steady either.

Katie looked back and forth between them in open confusion, but Will just shook his head at her and urged Clarence forward.

The ranch was only a few miles away from this point and as they carefully brought down a couple of fence posts so the horses could ride through, Will had mixed feelings. Part of him felt like he was coming home, the home that he and Molly had shared for over ten years, the home where his son was born, the home where he'd met John and learned to care for him.

The other part of him recognized that this ranch wasn't his home any longer. The air was too dry, the dirt was too arid, and the land between bits of civilization was too vast. Will had been born in a big city and now that he was back to living in a big city, he couldn't imagine wanting to eke a subsidence existence out of the rocky desert again. All of the adventurousness that had brought him out here the first time had long since been burnt out by tragedy and hardship, and he had no desire to get it back.

Still, there was a different sort of pleasure to be found in Katie's open fascination. As she stared about her in awe, Will remembered the first time he saw a towering mesa or a delicate stone arch or the reddish brown earth so unlike the grey granite undertones of Philadelphia. Will made a silent promise to himself that he would take her to see the Grand Canyon before he and John went back to Boston. It wasn't that far away – no further than Bisbee – and it was a sight that everyone should see at least once in their life. 

If it softened the girl's dismay at their upcoming parting, well, that would just be a pleasant side benefit.

As they got closer to the ranch without seeing a single soul, Will's uneasiness grew. The cattle might be in another part of the ranch and some of the boys would be with the herd, but there were supposed to be over a dozen boys at the ranch and Mrs. Potter couldn't have sent them all away. By this point, he would've expected to see at least one or two, hauling deadwood, checking the fence or maybe just practicing their riding. To not have seen a single soul this close to the cabin was ominous.

His rising sense that something was wrong only increased once the cabin was in sight. No boys were working the garden, the clothesline was empty, and no smoke was coming out of the chimney. The place looked dead.

Will exchanged a look with John, then reached over to grab Katie's reins. "Hold up there, Katie."

She looked over questioningly.

"We're not sure what we're going to find at the cabin, so I need you to stay behind John and me, okay?"

Katie nodded.

"And don't touch _anything_. Nothing. In fact, I don't want you getting off your horse. Not till John or I say it's safe."

Katie looked confused and a bit wary, but she nodded again.

Will let out a breath. "Okay. Good." He looked at John again. "I guess there's no point in waiting."

Part of him hoped that John would come up with a reason to wait, but John just nodded sharply and turned Butterscotch toward the cabin. Will swallowed hard, glanced back to make sure Katie was following them, and rode after John.

They were nearly there when the door opened and Mrs. Potter stepped out. Will felt powerful surge of relief, until he saw that Mrs. Potter was carrying a shotgun.

John pulled Butterscotch up sharply, letting Will ride up to the front. Will trusted that John would keep Katie back and rode right up to the porch. "Mrs. Potter?"

For a moment Will thought that she didn't recognize him, but then the shotgun fell out of her hands and clattered to the porch. "Mr. Connors," she breathed. Then her eyes welled up with tears and she stepped forward. "Will."

Will slid off of Clarence and took two steps forward to wrap his arms around Mrs. Potter, holding her tight as she cried against his shoulder. Behind him, he heard two other horses riding up to the house, then John and Katie appeared on Will's left, both looking painfully uncomfortable. 

Fortunately, Mrs. Potter pulled herself together quickly and she stepped back, wiping reddened eyes and tidying her grey bun. "I'm so sorry about that, dear. I guess the last few months just caught up with me all at once."

"The last few months?" Will repeated carefully.

"It's a long story," Mrs. Potter said. "You should bring your friends in and we can talk about it over a spot of lunch."

"I'm sorry, this is Charles Merriweather and –"

John cleared his throat pointedly.

"Ah, sorry, Charles Merriweather _the third_ , and Katie. Katie, Charles, this is Mrs. Potter."

"Charles Merriweather!" Mrs. Potter repeated. "My goodness, I'm so glad you decided to come out to see the school. I just wish you had come at a better time."

"I only wish I'd been able to come out sooner, Mrs. Potter," John said, gallantly lifting her hand and bowing over her fingers. Mrs. Potter's cheeks pinked and she looked like she was holding back a giggle.

Will rolled his eyes and glanced over at Katie, secretly pleased at the way her nose was wrinkled up in disgust. "Come on," he told her. "Let's see what we can find for lunch."

They didn't get very far into the cabin before Mrs. Potter came bustling in, a smug-looking John at her heels. Will left the cooking to Mrs. Potter and a curious Katie and moved to stand next to John. "Honestly," he muttered. "She's old enough to be your mother. Maybe even your grandmother."

"I was just being chivalrous," John said loftily. "Though she is quite an amazing woman to run this place all by herself."

"With Jesse Harper's help, of course."

As was always the case when Will mentioned Jesse's name, John's brow furrowed. He had taken a powerful dislike to Jesse from the moment he'd first heard the man's name, though Will could never figure out why. As far as he knew, the two of them hadn't even met.

Abandoning John to his irrational emotions, Will went around the small cabin, cataloguing the changes since he'd left. The most obvious was the wall between the main room and his bedroom; that had been removed to allow for a larger eating area as more boys had come. The tiny addition that had been Tommy's room was converted into a pantry, though the paltry contents of that pantry were surprising. More than anything else, John had insisted that the boys at the school be well-fed.

Of the boys themselves, there was little sign. A few pictures on the walls, a couple of toys in the corner, a deck of cards on a shelf. Clearly children had clearly been in this space, but the paper the pictures were drawn on was already starting to yellow with age and the toys were covered with a fine sheen of dust.

On the other hand, Will saw no evidence that the ranch had been ravaged by disease, either. The cabin was in good shape and there had been a new patch on the porch railing when they'd come in. The air was clean and fresh and the windows were open. Most telling of all, there was no stockpiling of wood; Mrs. Potter hadn't even started up the stove until they'd arrived. If typhoid really had hit this ranch, it had clearly run its course, because there was no evidence that the well water was being boiled before drinking.

As Mrs. Potter pulled biscuits out of the oven, the cabin door banged open. John had his gun drawn before Will even finished turning around, but lowered it immediately as Will called out, "Jesse!"

When Will had last seen Jesse Harper, the man had been naught but skin and bones, topped with a mop of shaggy, bright red hair. Four years of Mrs. Potter's cooking had filled the man out some and the ranching must've given him some muscle, because the tall lanky man filling the doorway looked strong enough to take down an angry steer. He also looked delighted. "Will!"

"Heya, Jesse," Will said, clasping the proffered hand tightly.

"Wasn't sure we was ever gonna see you again, what with you going all the way to Boston. What're you doing out here?"

"We hadn't heard from Mrs. Potter in a while and were getting worried."

"We?"

John's face, if possible, grew even more sour. Will coughed to cover a laugh. "Sorry about that. Jesse, let me introduce you to Charles Merriweather. The third. Charles, this is Jesse Harper."

"Charmed," John said stonily.

Jesse looked taken aback. "Er, nice to meet ya." 

"And this," Will added quickly, "is Katie. We ran into her on the way here."

Jesse smiled down at Katie and gave her an awkward pat on the head before clearing his throat. "So – have you been to town yet?"

Will glanced over at John. "No, we came straight here."

Both Jesse and Mrs. Potter suddenly lost much of their tension.

"Why?" Will added, suspiciously.

"We have a new sheriff," Mrs. Potter said, laying out the biscuits, salt pork, and green beans. Judging from the contents of the pantry, Will suspected this was the best meal she'd served to the table in a while. "He's not partial to outsiders."

"It's not so bad now," Jesse added. "There's a few folks arriving every day for the tournament. Before, though, chances were anyone coming through town'd end up in the jail." Jesse was politely waiting while the guests served themselves, but Will couldn't help but see the way Jesse's eyes lingered longingly on the beans. The moment the others set down the serving spoons, Jesse snatched that bowl up.

"Tournament," John said neutrally. "What kind of tournament?"

"Dueling," Mrs. Potter said, her voice laced with disapproval. "On Main Street, no less. And he renamed the town, said no one would want to come to a competition in a place called Dead Horse."

"What's the town called now?" Will asked, the same time John asked, "What's the sheriff's name?"

"Liberty," Mrs. Potter answered. "And the sheriff's name is Sutton. Josiah Sutton."

John scowled. "That bastard did always have a twisted sense of humor."

"I'm guessing he wasn't terribly original either," Will said dryly.

"You know him?" Jesse asked, confused and a bit wary.

Will looked over at John. "We should tell them." John's eyes widened and he shook his head sharply. "We're going to need their help," Will said insistently. "And if this Sutton bastard knows you, people are going to find out eventually."

John gritted his teeth, but he clearly noticed that everyone, even Katie, was staring at him. "Fine," he ground out, and Will saw his hand go to his hip. Not a good sign, but there was nothing for it now but to get it over with.

"First, I need to apologize," Will said. "I lied to you earlier. This man is not Charles Merriweather. Well, he is, but that's not the name he was born with." He cleared his throat, feeling a mite nervous now that it came down to it. "Jesse, Mrs. Potter – I'd like you to meet John Anderson."

There was a silent moment, broken by Jesse: "As in, the hero of your novels?"

"You've read them," Will said, pleased despite everything.

"Not the point, Will," John gritted out.

"In some ways it is; I wouldn't've ever thought of writing about you if we hadn't met."

"How _did_ you two meet?" Mrs. Potter asked. She sounded suspicious, which cut Will to the quick.

"He was shot and in the running away, he ended up on my land," Will said. "About eight years ago now. I brought him home and Molly helped fix him up. I didn't know who he was till after he left.

"A few years later, he came back. That was after Molly died and ..." Will shrugged. "The ranch was falling apart with just me to take care of it. John agreed to help out in exchange for a place to hide. After a while, I decided I wanted to go back east and John thought that was a great idea for him as well, since he's not wanted east of Texas. He'd already decided he wanted to start a school for orphans, so he bought my ranch. We stayed in touch." Literally, most days. "He'd help me with plots for my John Anderson stories and I'd give him news of the ranch from Mrs. Potter's letters."

Jesse and Mrs. Potter both looked rather dubious, but Mrs. Potter's voice was perfectly neutral when she said, "Well then, I'm sorry there isn't much for you to see at your ranch, Mr. Anderson. We sent all of the boys away months ago."

John looked grim. "Why?"

"Because Mr. Sutton came around here a couple of times, recruiting 'deputies' and promising the world. I was afraid that if we didn't send the boys away, they would've ended up dead, or worse."

Jesse added, "And I didn't like the way Sutton looked at the younger boys."

John froze. "He doesn't have access to any little boys, does he?"

Everyone turned to stare at him. "Why?" Jesse asked warily.

"For the reasons you're thinking of right now," John said tersely, his eyes shooting to

Katie, who was doing a terrible job of pretending not to listen. "Answer the question." 

"The Landon boy," Mrs. Potter said faintly. "Their house burned down and everyone but the boy died. Sutton offered to take him in."

"That sonuvabitch," Jesse breathed. 

"He probably set the fire," John said. "He always did have an unholy fascination with fire."

"We have to get that boy away from Sutton," Will said flatly. "Right now. Today."

John was already shaking his head. "Even if you do manage to rescue the boy without getting yourselves or him killed, Sutton's just going to find another one and probably kill another family in the process. You don't need to rescue the boy, you need to eliminate Sutton."

Will suddenly felt cold. "You mean kill him."

John looked Will straight in the eye. "Yeah."

Will stared back, not sure what to say, what to feel. He'd always held that killing was wrong and he never would have been able to be with John without the promise that John would never kill someone other than in self-defense. But at the same time, he couldn't forget Mrs. Pendergast's face, or the way her blood pulsed through his fingers. If John had killed Charming Charlie and his gang when he'd first wanted to, that woman would still be alive.

Will shoved himself to his feet with such force that he nearly knocked his chair over. "I need some air."

The others immediately broke out in protest, but Will ignored them, his entire attention on escaping out the front door. It didn't do him much good, however, as John came out right on his heels. "Leave me alone, John!"

"No," John hissed back. "We don't have time for your scruples now. Every minute we delay is another minute before that boy can be rescued."

"I thought you said we couldn't rescue the boy," Will said shakily.

"I said we couldn't rescue him right away. We need to distract Sutton first."

"By killing him?"

"Will –"

"I'm not going to stop you," Will said. John closed his mouth mid-protest. "A man like that – he can't be let to live. And while I'd prefer a trial and a jury and a judge, I have a suspicion that any man who tried to legally hold Sutton to his crimes would end up just as dead as Jacob Landon's family." Will took a deep breath. "If you need the words said, then: John, I release you from your promise."

Inexplicably, John seemed to grow more tense at that, rather than less. "I wish you didn't have to do that, Will."

Will sighed and blinked stinging eyes. "So do I, John. So do I." 


	8. Chapter 8

They spent the rest of the day planning. More accurately, John spent the rest of the day planning while Mrs. Potter kept Katie occupied and Will and Jesse paced the cabin and periodically answered questions about the town and townsfolk. According to Jesse, Sutton hadn't taken over the saloons, but he was taking protection money from them as well as from most of the town's suppliers. There had been a quarantine for a few months but it had been a haphazard one, with supply wagons coming in and out nearly every week, though stagecoaches were turned away. The stagecoaches never came back, which meant there was no mail coming into the town at all; the only way to send or receive mail was the post office in River Bend. With 'deputies' watching all of the main roads in and out of town, the only way to River Bend was overland and back country. Since most people in town didn't own a horse and most ranches were shorthanded due to Sutton's aggressive recruitment tactics, that effectively meant no mail at all for the town. 

Making the town even more isolated was the fact that Sutton had taken over the telegraph office. The lines were still intact, but no one was allowed to send or receive telegrams without Sutton's permission.

Most shocking of all, however, was that Sutton had taken over Grady's ranch. "Not that he wants anything to do with the cattle," Jesse said sourly. "Half of his deputies are working the ranch. He just wanted the house."

Nick Grady did have the nicest house in the area, though it was a good three miles further from town than Will's – now John's – ranch. "What about Grady? I can't imagine he just let Sutton take his house."

"No one knows what happened to him. He hasn't been seen since Sutton moved in."

From the grim look on John's face, Will had a pretty good idea what happened to Grady and the darkest part of his mind wondered if houses were the only things Sutton liked to burn.

In the end, it was decided that John would ride to River Bend to send out a telegram for reinforcements – though he was cagey on what those reinforcements would be – and then ride back into town on the main road so no one would think to connect him to the ranch. Both he and Jesse would sign up for the tournament. "It's lucky you got here when you did," Jesse commented. "Tournament starts next week and the slots are almost full. Sutton's throwing a party tomorrow night once the sign-ups close."

Will couldn't imagine anyone wanting to sign up to stand in the middle of a street and have someone shoot at him. "Who all's signed up?"

"All of Sutton's deputies, a few townsfolk. Some want to work for Sutton, some are hoping to do what we're planning – thin out his forces enough to attack him directly. A handful have come from out of town; no idea how they heard about the tournament."

"Wonder if any of them got the same kinda invitation that Stone gave you," Will commented to John.

"I doubt any. Sutton's not the kind of man force a confrontation, which is why Stone is dead and Sutton's not. Out-of-towners are probably the result of the deputies in charge of the supply runs drinking too much and talking about things they shouldn't. Word gets around." John sat back in his seat with a sigh. "Will, you okay with going into town? I'd like to have eyes on the place not connected with the tournament."

"I'll say I came by to visit the ranch. Took the back route, had no idea about the quarantine or the tournament."

"Then I think we're ready. Will, Harper, you should probably practice your shooting. Don't worry about running out of bullets, I'll get plenty when I'm in River Bend."

Will considered his rifle doubtfully. "Maybe you should get me a pistol. Not sure my rifle will be discreet enough."

"Maybe a short-barreled shotgun instead. The shot scatters wider the shorter the barrel, so aim's not as important. You'll have to get close, though."

"I'm planning on being in the crowd. Want to be close, in case something happens."

"What about Katie?" John asked. "We're right next to Grady's ranch; any of his men get bored, this is the first place they'd come."

"Don't worry about the girl," Jesse cut in. "After that first visit, we started hiding the younger boys in the cellar when we heard anyone coming. Kind of awkwardly placed under the table there, but once the rug's pulled over it no one can tell there's a door there at all."

Will smiled rather sadly, thinking back to simpler days when he'd built that cellar for John to hide in. They'd never needed to use it before they left for Boston. "We should get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

~~~

Unfortunately, once he was lying down Will was completely unable to fall asleep. He and John were crammed into a bunk in one of the boys' cabins, each of which had eight bunk beds along the walls. They had the place to themselves, as Mrs. Potter had kindly offered to let Katie spend the night with her and Jesse had a cabin of his own, but when John had tentatively suggested intimate activities, Will had shaken his head. The very idea of them touching that way when Sutton might at that very moment be touching Jacob Landon the same way ... the very thought of it made Will feel physically ill.

"I wish we could just go in there and shoot that bastard," Will said into the pitch blackness of the cabin. He couldn't see his hand if he held it up in front of his face, but he drew some comfort from the feel of John's breath washing across the nape of his neck. "I'm not sure I could kill him outright, but I could make sure he never hurt Jacob Landon again."

He felt John's arm tighten comfortingly against his waist. "We can't take the risk. There's only three of us. Sutton could have half a dozen or more at the ranch."

"I know," Will said bitterly.

"Will ..." John took a deep breath. "It might not be as bad as you're imagining." Will made a sound of protest, but was cut off by John hastily adding, "Not that it's not horrible and unnatural. Of course it is and Sutton will die for it. But when he gets his hands on a boy, he courts him. Gives him gifts of toys and candy, takes him riding, plies him with alcohol. It's possible he hasn't started touching the Landon boy yet; it sometimes takes weeks or even months before he gets to that point."

"I wouldn't have expected that from a man who would kill a whole family to get to a boy."

"It's a rare monster that has no tenderness in him." John's free arm came up to pillow Will's head.

Will swallowed hard, relaxing a bit despite himself. John's words may be a lie, but it was a lie Will desperately needed to believe. "I can't believe you didn't kill him before."

John sighed. "If I'd killed everyone in that gang who deserved it, there wouldn't've been a gang left. Sutton wasn't even the worst of the bunch. Everyone there did things to be ashamed of, including me." Will felt John's forehead rest against the nape of his neck and when John spoke again, his voice was muffled. "I still have days where I struggle to believe that you can really want me. After everything I've done, it should be impossible to have so much happiness in my life."

Will's eyes burned. "John –"

"We'll get Sutton," John said fiercely. "I promise you that. We'll string him up by his scrawny neck and free this town and that little boy and then we're going to go home and never come back to this godforsaken country again."

Will reached down to where John's hand was resting on his stomach and he gripped it as tight as he could. "I don't regret coming," he said quietly. "If we hadn't come, Katie would be dead, Jacob Landon would be as good as, and Mrs. Potter and Jesse and everyone else in town would be living in fear for the rest of their lives. I just wish –" He shook his head slightly, feeling John's hair brush against his own. "I wish the killing wasn't necessary."

"Maybe we don't have to kill him," John offered, though Will could hear misgivings in his voice. "Maybe we can just capture him and call in the Marshals."

Will was already shaking his head. "What Sutton's doing – what Charming Charlie's gang was doing – those weren't subtle crimes, John. If law enforcement hadn't taken care of them before we arrived, there must be a reason for it. Corrupt officials, blackmail, extortion – something that keeps the criminals safe from prosecution. And every day that they aren't in prison or dead is another day an innocent might die." He slumped back, letting John take more of his weight. "I do understand the necessity, John. I just wish things were different."

Soft lips pressed against the nape of Will's neck. "So do I, Will. So do I."


	9. Chapter 9

John left a few minutes after dawn. Katie joined Will in forlornly watching him ride off into the burgeoning morning light and neither of them had much appetite for breakfast. Will noticed Mrs. Potter and Jesse exchanging laden glances and tried to do a better job of faking interest in the day, but he was relieved when the meal was over and he could retreat back to his cabin.

He'd barely had a chance to stretch out on the bunk before the door opened again and Katie slipped in. "Hey," he said gently. "Everything okay?"

Katie scampered across the short distance between the door and the bunk and burrowed into Will's side. "Hey now," he said, wrapping an arm around her.

"Don't go."

Will froze, wondering if he'd imagined that tiny whisper. "Katie?"

She held on tighter. 

Will sighed and held her close, thinking to himself that when the time came, it was going to be really hard to leave her behind.

~~~

After Will and Katie had indulged in a good long wallow, they went outside and followed the sounds of gunshots to the barn, where Jesse was practicing a fast draw. To Will's untrained eye, Jesse looked mighty fast, but the amount of sighing going on over that pistol seemed to indicate that Jesse thought otherwise.

"Not going well?"

"Honestly, I don't know. Not much call for gunslinging in Dead Horse. Sorry, _Liberty_." Jesse whipped the pistol out of his holster and fired. One of the cans on the rail popped up in the air. Jesse swore.

"I thought that was a pretty good shot," Will observed.

"Wasn't the one I was aiming for." He started reloading his gun. While his head was down, he added, "Is it true, what you write? Is Mr. Anderson really as amazing as he is in your books?"

Will snorted. "No one's amazing as John Anderson in my books; the man has a gift for tall tales." He cleared his throat. "I'm happy to hear you read them."

"Of course! Everyone has. We're all so proud that such a big author came from right here in Dead Horse. Besides, your books aren't like other dime novels. Most of those, it's clear the author's never been outside a big city."

"Thanks," Will said, feeling himself flush. "It's real kind of you to say that."

Jesse grinned. "Actually, I was wondering if you'd sign the ranch's copy of your books. Think the boys would get a real kick out of that, once it's safe for them to come back."

The reminder of their current situation was sobering. Will gathered his rifle and ammo from Katie, who looked reluctant to let them go, and loaded the gun. "Guess I should get some practice in while I have the chance."

They spent the rest of the morning using up the bulk of their ammo until Will called a halt to reserve what they had left. "Just in case someone comes," he explained when Jesse wanted to keep going. "Or if there's trouble when we go into town."

The plan was to go into town right after lunch, so Jesse would have plenty of time to sign up and Will would be seen about town well before John arrived. There was a slight hitch when Katie latched onto Will's waist and refused to be removed. "Katie, honey, I'm not going away forever. I'll be back tonight, with Jesse."

Katie declined to be comforted.

In the end, they had to physically pull her away and the moment she was separated from Will, she started screaming. Will shot Mrs. Potter a sympathetic look, but forced himself to turn away. They could hear her screams all the way into the barn, which made the horses skittish and did nothing to improve Will's temper.

He'd recovered himself by the time they were close to town, enough so to ask, "Is Sutton going to be at the party?"

"Probably. If he is, he'll have his bodyguards with him."

Will stared. "The sheriff has bodyguards?"

"Yep. Hired 'em after a couple of townsfolk tried to kill him. Decided his deputies weren't good enough and brought in the Pinkertons."

"Damn. How many Pinkertons are we talking?"

"Four during the day. Not sure how many at night."

"Are they signed up for the tournament?"

"Don't know," Jesse said. "But I doubt it."

Will was still mulling over that bit of information when they rode over that last hill before town. From a distance, the place looked nearly the same as when he left. Maybe a few more tents on the outskirts, where the new businesses either thrived and turned into more permanent structures, or failed and disappeared without a trace. Most of the tents looked to be in bad shape; Will imagined Sutton's presence wasn't a boon for the entrepreneurial spirit.

"Where's the signups and the party?"

"Herrod's Saloon. They gave Sutton free use of the whores in exchange for not having to pay protection money." Off Will's questioning look, he added, "They ordered a cow last week and the cook and I got to talking."

"An entire cow just for that saloon?" Will asked incredulously. 

"His deputies eat a lot of steak when they don't have to pay for it. Herrod passed some of the extra around town; they haven't had fresh meat in months."

Will shook his head. "Seems like a piss-poor way to run things. If he kept everyone fed then they'd probably be grateful to have him take over."

"Feeding people's expensive. I get the impression Sutton'd rather spend that kind of money on himself."

~~~

For the first time in Will's experience with Dead Horse, the stables were all full. Since he and Jesse didn't plan to spend the night, they settled for finding a spot on the already crowded hitching rail in front of Herrod's. Will couldn't help but wonder what John was going to do – Butterscotch would likely chew through her reins if anyone attempted to hitch her to a rail all night.

Herrod's itself looked a lot better than the one time Will had seen it before. Then, he'd been looking for a woman to take his mind off of his inconvenient urges in John's direction. At that time, Herrod's had had a reputation for people of more unconventional tastes, with some exotic liquors, flexible whores, and the only roulette wheel in town. Dead Horse not being a terribly exotic or unconventional town, Herrod's had been quiet and a bit run down when Will visited. These days, however, it looked like new, with fresh paint on the walls, brand-new felt on the roulette table, several tables for faro and monte, and even a table in the corner for the increasingly popular game of poker. More astonishing were the whores: last time Will had visited, the whores had been half-dressed and lacking in personal hygiene, but the women currently dotting the main floor were all spotlessly clean and wearing elegant dresses. Will wondered if they really were servicing the men for free, or if Sutton was providing funds. It seemed impossible that they weren't getting money from somewhere.

"There's the signups," Jesse said, pointing to a blackboard on the wall. "Looks like John has already gotten here."

Will eyed the board. "His name's on there four times."

Jesse opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Huh. Maybe they were just really excited to have someone so famous?"

"Ex- _cuse_ me."

Will and Jesse spun around, then looked down to see the smallest man Will had ever clapped eyes on. He barely came up to Will's chest, though the ten gallon hat he was wearing made up most of the difference. "You're blocking my way," the little man said pompously. Will stepped aside and the man strutted into the saloon. A moment later, he went for the blackboard.

"I know what that is," Jesse hissed excitedly in Will's ear. "That's a dwarf. I saw one in a freak show once!"

"Maybe you could keep that to yourself," Will suggested dryly, watching in interest as the little man turned away from the blackboard with his hands on his hips and an annoyed look on his face. 

"My name is John Anderson," he announced. "The _real_ John Anderson. I'm here for the tournament."

One of the men at the poker table crowed with laugher. "Looks like we got another one, boys!" He nudged the man next to him, a scruffy blond with a short beard. "You owe me five bucks."

The blond poked through his pile of chips with a scowl on his face. "How many goddamn John Andersons can there be?"

"At least six, apparently," Will said under his breath. He elbowed Jesse in the side. "Weren't you going to sign up?"

"Right," Jesse said. He looked nervous.

"You don't have to do this," Will murmured. "There's lots of people signed up already."

"But most of them are Sutton's men," Jesse pointed out. "Or want to be. They don't do us any good."

"We still have John. The real John. Hopefully he'll be all we need."

Jesse turned with a frown. "Why are you trying to talk me out of signing up?"

"Because I don't want you to do this," Will said helplessly. "People are going to be dying out there, Jesse. I don't want you to be one of them."

Jesse was silent for a moment and Will privately hoped he'd changed his mind. Finally he said, "People are already dying," and Will's heart sank.

He was debating whether to take one of the few available tables or to belly up at the bar when Jesse returned. "Come on," he said roughly. "I need a drink."

Will heartily agreed.

During the next couple of hours, three more men signed up, nearly filling the board. Will was having a tough time not staring at the door; part of him was wondering if anything had happened to John, while the rest was secretly hoping that John was delayed just long enough to miss the signup deadline. If the thought of Jesse participating in this tournament scared him, the idea of losing John to the tournament was positively terrifying.

Still, they had a plan and Will knew just how determined John could be, and he wasn't really surprised when the saloon doors slammed open a few minutes before five and John strode in. Everyone in the saloon turned to stare at the new arrival and John stared back for a few moments before turning and stalking to the chalkboard. No one crowed this time as the sixth 'John Anderson' was added to the list.

Without so much as a glance at Will and Jesse, John slid into an empty barstool and ordered a whisky. When he tried to pay, the barkeep held up his hand. "All tournament players drink for free, Mr. Anderson."

"Take it as a tip, then," John said, leaving the coin on the bar. The barkeep snatched it away quickly, tucking it into his pocket as he hurried down to the other end of the bar.

All around the room, Will could hear whispers starting up as John sipped his drink and a quick glance around revealed that not only was it okay for him to look at John, it would look strange if he didn't. Every eye in the bar was turned in John's direction, some discreetly and some directly. Even the piano player was distracted, judging by the way he missed several notes in a row.

If John noticed he was the center of attention, he made no sign of it. He just sipped at his whisky till it was gone, then turned on his stool to face the rest of the saloon.

Suddenly, everyone in the room was utterly fascinated with whatever was in his hands.

Will took a sip of his own drink to hide a smile. He'd known that John had a reputation, of course; much of his book sales were driven by John's name. Still, he hadn't realized just how powerful that reputation was.

Over the next hour or so, Will and Jesse stayed at the bar, enjoying the whisky and rebutting and encouraging the advances of the whores, respectively. When one of them suggested going upstairs, however, Jesse declined. "Waiting for the sheriff to arrive," he told her. "Don't want to miss the start of the party."

From the woman's expression, it was clear she didn't think he'd be gone long enough to worry about missing anything, but she stayed by his side as the night rolled on. Will figured given a choice between flirting for free or fucking for free, she'd take the former.

John stayed at the bar just long enough to finish one more drink before he went out to the gambling tables. He hovered over the faro tables for a minute or two, but apparently the stakes weren't high enough for him and he ended up at the roulette wheel. Everyone else at that table suddenly discovered somewhere else they needed to be, leaving John to enjoy the table alone, though after a few minutes the whores started to include him in their rounds. John smiled at them and looked them in the eye when he spoke to them, but he also sent them away quickly, his attention immediately turning back to the wheel.

As tempting as it was, Will did not join John at the roulette table. In fact, he tried very hard not to let his eyes linger too long on that table at any given moment, though he did notice that the pile of chips in front of John was steadily increasing. Since Will would have been willing to wager good money that this saloon didn't have a single non-rigged game, he wondered if fixing in favor of the gambler was another service the saloon provided to Sutton's men. It didn't seem possible in the long run; maybe it was a way to raise men's confidence while their money supply was tight, so that they'd bet bigger when they had more money to lose.

Will was still mulling over this possibility when the saloon door opened again, this time to reveal a pair of men wearing sturdy, durable looking suits. They were carrying shotguns and each man had a badge pinned to his lapel. The badges were entirely the wrong shape for sheriff or deputy badges.

The entire room went quiet, though unlike the silence that had heralded John's arrival, this silence was anticipatory. Will understood why a moment later, when the two gunmen shifted to hold the doors open as a third man came in, this one wearing a fine suit and a shiny sheriff's star. He was a tall man, with black hair and blue eyes, and there was a boy, no more than seven, at his side. If Will didn't know better, he'd think the hand the man had on the boy's shoulder was paternal.

So this was Josiah Sutton. Not quite what Will had expected. He looked nothing at all like a monster. Then again, Charming Charlie hadn't looked much like a monster, either.

Sutton's eyes were scanning the crowd as Will contemplated his villainy and almost immediately he zeroed in on John. "It seems we have a celebrity in our midst. I was wondering just how many John Andersons we'd have to collect before the real thing arrived."

John very deliberately placed another bet on the table before turning to face Sutton. "Hello, Josiah."

Sutton sauntered into the saloon, his hand still attached to Jacob's shoulder. Will felt his pulse rise as he saw the resigned expression on Jacob's face as he was manhandled.

A hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezed hard. "Not our time yet," Jesse murmured.

Will's hands curled into fists, but he nodded his head slightly and eased back on his stool till the small of his back was pressed up against the bar.

Sutton ended up nearly nose-to-nose with John. He was a couple of inches taller, but John stared back calmly, completely unruffled. After a moment, Sutton suddenly turned away to face the room at large. "I'm here to announce that the signups are officially closed. Contestants, you are welcome to enjoy anything this town has to offer, free of charge! The tournament will begin on Monday at high noon, with times for each duel posted on this board. Anyone who shows up late will be disqualified."

"And shot!" called one of the men from the poker table. The rest of the men at the table laughed uproariously.

"And shot," Sutton said agreeably. "Barkeep, please pour a round of your best whisky for my friends here."

"And keep 'em coming!" Another suggestion from the poker table.

Sutton ignored this comment as he was looking over the crowd again. This time his eyes landed on Will. "Relax," Jesse said out of the corner of his mouth. "You look like you want to kill him with your bare hands."

"That's because I do," Will muttered, though he deliberately loosened his fists. His fingers ached as they stretched back out to lay flat on his thighs.

Apparently he was too late, however, as Sutton made his way to the bar next to him. "Tequila," he ordered from the barkeep before turning to Will. "I don't believe I've seen you around these parts before. Did you come for the tournament?"

Will swallowed hard and tried his best to keep his voice level as he answered: "Just in town visiting my old ranch. Didn't even know there was a tournament going on."

"And which ranch would that be?"

"The Charles Merriweather Ranch for Boys."

"Ah, Mrs. Potter's place." Sutton's eyes slid over to Jesse, who was looking very focused on his drink. "And you're the cowboy. Harper, isn't it?"

Jesse put down his glass and managed a passable smile as he shook Sutton's outstretched hand. "Jesse Harper, sir. I brought Will here to see the town while I signed up for the tournament."

"Very kind of you, especially since I recently heard that all of your boys ran away. I'm surprised you aren't out looking for them."

"Actually, it was good for me that they left," Jesse said. "Mrs. Potter wasn't going to let me sign up for the tournament while they were there."

Sutton shook his head. "It must be terrible for you, having to follow the directions of a decrepit old woman."

Will tried to imagine anyone who had actually met Mrs. Potter calling her decrepit. He couldn't quite fathom how it would be possible.

"It's good that you signed up for the tournament," Sutton added. "If you rank high enough, I'll bring you on as one of my deputies. I think you'll find that the position has some very nice benefits."

"Thank you, Mr. Sutton. Er, Sheriff Sutton. I'll do my best."

"Or die trying, I imagine," Sutton said with a smile that made bile rise up in the back of Will's throat. Jesse didn't look like he noticed, though, and he shook the man's hand again before going back to his drink.

"I'm impressed," Will murmured.

"Lived hand to mouth most of my life, Will,” Jesse said under his breath. “You learn to do what you gotta do."

They stayed for another hour or two, drinking just enough not to stand out while the rest of the saloon degenerated into a mass of sloppy drunkenness. At some point, guns got drawn. With a nod, Sutton had his Pinkertons throw the offending parties out. Gunshots could be heard on the street soon after and Will wondered if the tournament might have its first casualty before it even started.

Finally, he and Jesse decided they'd stayed long enough to be polite and to establish that Will was in town. As they rode back to the ranch, it suddenly occurred to Will that he had never told Sutton his last name. Hopefully no one else would either; it was hard to imagine the man wouldn't see connections between the arrival of John Anderson and the arrival of the man made famous for writing John Anderson novels.


	10. Chapter 10

Back at the ranch, they found Mrs. Potter putting together a simple supper of biscuits and pinto beans. From the weary look on Jesse's face, biscuits and pinto beans had been served a lot more often on this table than he'd like and Will made a mental note to buy some more food supplies next time he was in town. He and John were funding this ranch, after all, even if there weren't currently any boys on site.

"Where's Katie?" Will asked as he tucked into his own portion with enthusiasm.

"Cried herself out, poor thing," Mrs. Potter said. "I suspect she's going to be quite angry with you come morning."

"She's going to be even angrier when I go into town again," Will said with a sigh. "Best she gets used to it, though, before John and I head back to Boston."

Mrs. Potter and Jesse both put down their forks. "You aren't intending to take her with you?" Mrs. Potter asked.

"How could I? She's not related to me or John. It wouldn't be appropriate."

"Perhaps not," Mrs. Potter said sternly. "But sometimes what's appropriate and what's right isn't the same thing. That girl loves you, Will. You and Mr. Anderson both. To abandon her here to strangers would be cruel."

"But I can't take her with me," Will protested. "What would people say?"

"Since when do you care what people say?" Jesse asked. "You never cared when you first came out and folks talked about how an East Coast city boy wouldn't be able to make a go of the ranch. You never cared when people laughed at you for letting Molly handle your money matters –"

"It wasn't that I couldn't do it myself, but Molly enjoyed that sort of thing," Will muttered.

"– you certainly didn't care when Grady spread all them rumors about you having carnal relations with your cattle."

" _What?_ "

"We never told you about that," Mrs. Potter said kindly. "No one ever really thought it was true."

"So why are you so bothered what people say about you taking in this girl?"

"Because they'll take her away," Will snapped. "And I won't be able to stop them, because I'm not her kin. At least here I know you'll take good care of her. Can't say the same of a lot of orphanages."

There was a moment of silence.

"I hadn't thought of that," Jesse admitted.

Mrs. Potter looked exasperated. "Then call her your niece. Or, better yet, call her Charles Merriweather's niece. Who's going to question the relations of a famous philanthropist?"

Put that way, Will couldn't think of a single flaw in the plan. Hell, the only question was, why didn't he think of it first? "Mrs. Potter, you are a gem."

"Thank you," she said regally. "Now I'm going to wake Katie up; she really shouldn't go the entire night without a bite of supper."

As Mrs. Potter went off to her cabin to wake the girl, Will poked at his food. It occurred to him that Katie wasn't likely to be happy with him at the moment and thus wouldn't be very amenable to discussions of living with him and John. And no matter what Mrs. Potter said, Will wasn't taking a girl across the country to live with him and John if she wasn't willing.

Katie came into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes with little fists and staring around blearily. The moment her eyes caught Will, however, she lit up and sprinted across the room to climb up on Will's lap. "Whoa," he said, laughing.

By the door, Mrs. Potter was smiling and looking unbearably smug. Will did his best to ignore her and wrapped Katie up in a hug.

Now, he just had to convince John. 

~~~

The next day, Will and Jesse snuck away from the ranch while Mrs. Potter kept Katie busy by reading to her from the small pile of meticulously cared for picture books that she'd read to her own children decades before. Will felt a little guilty about the subterfuge, but remembering the previous day's screaming, he thought it for the best.

Even though Jesse and Will didn't arrive at the town till well after noon, they found most of Dead Horse still slumbering. The shops and business were all open, but empty, and the hitching rails were all devoid of horses. 

As Will and Jesse watched, Butterscotch came galloping down Main Street, her chewed-off reins streaming behind her. She snorted when she drew up near Clarence, but she didn't stop. "That's a beautiful horse," Jesse said admiringly. "Don't see many palominos around here."

Will sighed and shook his head.

They stopped at the general store first to place an order. Sarah was behind the counter, looking just like Mrs. Potter but with less grey. "Mr. Connors, I didn't know you were in town!" Her smile slipped. "Mother hasn't been in town for months. I didn't even know you were coming."

"Well, it was something of a surprise," Will said. "I had trouble getting a telegram through."

"Yes, well. The sheriff has some ... interesting ideas about telegrams."

"So I've heard." Will handed over a list. "Could you get the first half of this ready for me for this afternoon? The rest is for tomorrow."

"Mr. Connors!" Sarah said, sounding scandalized. "Tomorrow is Sunday!"

"I know," Will said, though the truth was that Sundays didn't mean as much to him as they had when Molly was still alive. She'd always been the one who pushed them to ride into town every Sunday for church. "But Jesse and I only have four saddlebags between us and the ranch is down to bare shelves."

"What about the ranch's wagon?" Sarah asked.

Will glanced over at Jesse. "My understanding is that the wagon horse was ... drafted, in a way. By the sheriff."

"Took the wagon, too," Jesse said bluntly.

"Oh," Sarah said. She looked conflicted for a moment. "What if I made up the order tonight and left it at the back door? Mother has the spare key."

"Sounds perfect. Thanks, Sarah." He made it halfway to the door before his better nature made him turn around. "Sarah? Do you happen to have any butterscotches?"

"Of course. How many would you like?"

"Give me a twist." He considered how far and fast Butterscotch could run. "Make it two."

The next couple of hours were infuriating. On the one hand, Butterscotch clearly wasn't interested in achieving her freedom, because they found her nibbling on some sagebrush in the outskirts of the town. On the other hand, she clearly wasn't interested in being brought back to John, because she bounced away any time they got close and a couple of times ran literal circles around them. "I hate this horse," Jesse said as his latest lunge for the remains of Butterscotch's reins nearly unseated him.

"Everyone hates this horse except for John, and some days I'm not even sure about him." Will rubbed his hand where Butterscotch managed to nip him when he was reaching for her reins. "Okay, time to try the candy."

When all was said and done, Will was convinced that they hadn't so much caught Butterscotch as she'd gotten bored with the game and was ready for her oats. It still took nearly an entire twist of candy just to get unbitten hands on the reins and Will handed the other twist to Jesse. "Just keep feeding her these till you get into town. If anyone asks, you found this horse wandering around town and don't know who it belongs to. It shouldn't take John long to find out she's missing, so he's probably already looking for her."

Jesse took the reins with as much enthusiasm as he'd give the fiery end of a burning stick. "Don't you want to bring her into town? She already knows you."

Will was already shaking his head. "We don't want Sutton to think there's any connection at all between John and me. If he thinks we're friends, even new friends, he'll be more careful what he says in my hearing."

"He's pretty careful all the time," Jesse said doubtfully. "And he doesn't usually spend that much time in town."

"He will for the tournament." Will spoke with more confidence than he actually felt, but it was a reasonable assumption. One of the top prizes of the tournament was a job with Sutton and only a foolish man would hire someone without seeing his performance. "Go on now. Return John's horse and maybe spend some time drinking with him. No one's going to question two people in the tournament talking, and it'll be useful later, if we ever need to have a reason to bring him back to the ranch."

"Yes, Will," Jesse said with a sigh. "What about you?"

Will ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "I think it's about time I got a haircut. And maybe a shave. It's been a long time since I had a chance for either."

They rode together until just before the town came into sight. Since Jesse had the harder job, Will let him ride in first, dismounting from Clarence in the interim and sitting down on a convenient rock to spend some time breathing in the desert air. It was a bit of a shock to his lungs as he'd gotten used to the salt-laden air of Boston, but it was a good shock, the kind of shock that filled him with nostalgia for years long past.

He let a good hour or so go by before heading into town and was grateful to find that, though the streets were filling up again with people, there wasn't much of a line at the barber's. Then again, he had noticed a distinct lack of personal hygiene was a common thread for most of Sutton's deputies.

Hair cut and cheeks clean shaven, Will wandered in the direction of Herrod's to start the next stage of their plan. Now that John and Jesse had signed up for the tournament, it was up to Will to get information on the other gunslingers, especially the kind of information that wouldn't be said in John or Jesse's hearing.

To that end, he bought a bottle of whisky and took it and a shot glass to a corner table, half hidden in the shadows, where he could watch the entire room and hear much of the conversation happening at the bar without being seen. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of a way to take notes on what he saw without it becoming abundantly clear what he was doing, so instead he made up nicknames for each gunman, and attached everything he learned about them to that name, like a coat on a hanger. 

The five men sitting at the poker table, for example, were the same five as had been sitting there the day before, and in Will's mind they became a unit, the Poker Players, at least until such time as they engaged in more individual behavior. All five worked for Sutton and none of them seemed nervous about the upcoming tournament, which probably meant they'd all been in duels before.

Sitting at the bar were a few more of Sutton's men. Will couldn't see all of them from where he was sitting, but two at the end were clearly related and both looked a little nervous. First-timers, then, and in part because of their matching facial hair, they became the Bearded Brothers.

The doors opened and the little man who'd signed up as John Anderson strutted inside. Naturally, he had to be called Little John, though every time Will thought the name he had to hide a smile as he thought of the Robin Hood tales that Molly used to tell Tommy when he was a little boy. It was hard to tell how much of Little John's confidence was real and how much was bluster, but Will reasoned that he'd be a significant challenge if only because there was less of him to aim at in a duel.

By the roulette table was another man who, after listening in on the surrounding conversations, Will was able to identify as yet another John Anderson. This one looked considerably younger than both the real John and Little John, and his light brown hair and beard were both neatly trimmed. His clothes were clean but visibly worn, and he was gambling with pennies rather than the dollars the real John had been using. A poor boy, then, seeking his fortune. Probably not someone to be worried about, unless he proved to have prodigious natural talent. He was dubbed Poor John.

More men filtered in, including two more fake Johns. The first was a dumpy man, who was sweating and red faced, even after he came inside from the heat. Will, who was getting a little bored with his names, opted to call him Humpty Dumpty. Unless Humpty's arms moved faster than the rest of his body by a significant amount, he didn't need to be worried about either.

The second John was the first to give Will real pause. The man was tall, over six feet tall if Will had to guess, and he was built like a grizzly bear. His shirt strained to cover his massive shoulders and his boots were big enough that Will could have fit both of his feet into just one of them. Between the size and the immense amount of grey hair that covered the man's head and face, Will was tempted to call the man Grizzly Bear John, but settled for Big John instead. Size probably didn't help as much in gunfights as it did in hand-to-hand fights, but Will looked at those colossal muscles and vast chest and thought that a bullet might have a tough time penetrating very far into this man's frame. He made a mental note to keep an eye out for Big John, though that would hardly require much effort.

So the evening went on. Nearly all of the thirty or so gunslingers made their way into the saloon at one point in time or another. John and Jesse came in together and the two of them sat down at the faro table. Will was mildly curious as to what they'd been doing all day, but was distracted by the last John Anderson wandering through the door. The man was of average height, average weight, had brown hair of average length, and his dusty brown clothes looked to be an average suit. Will's eyes narrowed suspiciously; it seemed impossible for someone to be so bland and forgettable without some effort involved. Though he had no reason for it, Will dubbed the man Sneaky John and decided to pay especially close attention to him.

By the time Sutton made an appearance in the late evening, Will was ready to go home the moment John and Jesse finished gambling. Frankly, between his impending headache and his exhaustion, he wasn't sure he was going to wait for Jesse; the man had lived in Dead Horse his entire life and had lived at the ranch for the last four years. He wouldn't need an escort.

Unfortunately, Sutton's arrival derailed Will's imminent departure. As before, Sutton had four Pinkerton bodyguards, two coming in before him and two bringing up the rear. He also had Jacob with him and Will threw back three shots in a row to keep himself calm enough to stay hidden. Since the only empty table at the saloon was just one over from Will's, he tilted his hat forward to make it harder to see his face, then propped his good leg up on the chair opposite from him and slid down in his seat. The end result was a much diminished ability to see the room as a whole, but a direct line of sight to the table that Sutton would have to take. Hopefully, anyone looking at him would think he was sleeping.

Sure enough, Sutton and Jacob were soon ensconced at that table, with three Pinkertons arranged behind him and one of the Pinkertons – a big, burly man with clean-shaven cheeks and a scar bisecting one eyebrow – settled in at Sutton's side. After one suspicious glance Will's way, all six appeared to dismiss him because they then turned to face the room at large. He let out a quiet sigh of relief as he listened in on their conversation.

It soon became apparent that Sutton was undertaking the same task as Will, as he and the Pinkerton at his side quietly discussed the various gunmen in the room. Will was curious as to why Sutton was so interested; unlike Tanner Stone, he didn't seem to be participating in the tournament himself. Then again, maybe he was betting on the outcome.

At any rate, both Sutton and his lackey were considerably more informed than Will was, which was how Will learned that Humpty Dumpty was really a famous – though he couldn't be that famous, since Will had never heard of him – East Coast gunslinger called Henry Watson who was traveling incognito, and that Little John had been challenging men to fights all along the Mexican border. He'd won every single one, though Sutton and the Pinkerton couldn't seem to agree on whether that was due to skill, luck, or men who hesitated to shoot a person the size of a child, even if that person was fully grown and shooting back. There was also some discussion of Sneaky John; Will was oddly gratified to hear that they found his relentlessly average appearance suspicious and there was some debate as to whether or not the man could be a federal marshal in disguise.

There was other discussion as well; apparently the two Mexicans in the opposite corner were signed up for the tournament and were brothers, though they looked nothing alike. The gentleman with the all-white suit, who Will had dubbed The Man in White, was a well-respected gunslinger from Kentucky. The kid wearing the too tight clothes and who was currently climbing the stairs with a whore was known as The Kid and was rapidly gaining a reputation for fast and steady hands.

The real John got his share of the conversation as well and, since Jesse was sitting next to him, he got considerably more attention than he might have otherwise. Sutton actually raised his hand in the air and crooked a finger at the poker table. One of the Players – the loud one, who had been making jokes about the number of John Andersons in the tournament at a volume that every John Anderson in the saloon had been able to hear – pushed back from the table and ambled over. "Yes, sir, Mr. Sutton?"

"It's _Sheriff_ Sutton, _Sheriff_ – oh, never mind. What do you know about that man with the red hair? Why's he sitting next to John?"

"He helped him catch his horse. Damn thing had gotten loose and was racing up and down the main drag."

"John did always latch on to the most irritating animal possible. Last time I saw him, his damn beast tried to bite off my ear!"

Will grinned and made a promise to himself to feed Old Faithful a sugar cube next time he saw her.

"Jesse Harper's not a gunman, though," the poker player continued. "Don't know that he's ever used a pistol, except to shoot rats."

"Good to hear," Sutton said thoughtfully and Will felt a sudden chill in his spine. For the first time he wondered if Sutton was gathering information so he would know how to arrange the duels so that his men had the best advantage.

Sutton stayed long into the night, long enough that Jacob had nodded off next to him and Will was seriously considering doing the same. Finally, once nearly every man in the room had wandered off with a whore or in the direction of the restaurant – open till midnight for the duration of the tournament, Will'd heard – Sutton gathered up Jacob in his arms and walked out the door with his contingent of Pinkertons around him.

Will watched him with gritted teeth and reminded himself that the tournament would be over by Friday. Jacob just had to survive one more week and then he'd be free of Sutton's loathsome touch.


	11. Chapter 11

Will slept in very late on Sunday; by the time the time he stumbled out of his cabin, the sun was nearly overhead and the bright light made his already aching head pound. With a groan and shielding his eyes with his hands, he went to the outhouse to do his business then weakly limped inside the mess hall, where he found Mrs. Potter and Katie waiting for him. Judging from the way Katie pointedly turned her back on him, Will was in disgrace. At some point in the day, he figured he might even care.

"Had a few too many?" Mrs. Potter asked frostily.

"Wasn't plannin' on it," Will muttered, his forehead on the table. "Then Sutton came in with Jacob and it was either drink or bash the man's head in with the whisky bottle."

"Well, I guess that's understandable," she answered, her tone softened a bit. "At any rate, we saved some breakfast for you. It's on the stove."

Will didn't particularly want breakfast and he certainly didn't want to sit up from his current position, but it'd been kind of Mrs. Potter to set the breakfast aside. It occurred to him that he had completely forgotten to pick up the supplies from the store so, feeling a mite guilty, Will dragged himself upright to collect the plate, though once he achieved his seat again he did little more than pick away at the cold biscuits.

He'd managed to reduce one biscuit into a pile of crumbs before he thought to ask, "Where's Jesse?"

"Went to town," Mrs. Potter said as she put an enormous kettle on the stove. "He took the packhorse. Said you ordered some supplies yesterday but never picked them up?"

Will groaned and put his head back down again. 

By the time he was feeling human enough to really take in his surroundings, the cabin was getting thick with steam from all of the pots and kettles Mrs. Potter had put on the stovetop. "Are you boiling water?"

She gave him a look like he was mentally deficient, which was justified. "Katie's dresses are filthy, Mr. Connors, and her only other clothes appear to be a set of trousers. It is high time she learns how to do her laundry."

Will winced at the 'Mr. Connors' and glanced over at Katie. Judging from her expression, she was already fully aware of how to do laundry. Of course, if she was anything like Tommy, she'd fake ignorance as long as possible. 

Feeling an unaccountable warmth in his chest, Will patted Katie on the head. She allowed it, which gave him hope that he was on his way to being forgiven for disappearing the day before.

Suddenly, he heard the faint sound of hoofbeats in the distance. "You expecting any company, Mrs. Potter?"

"No, why?"

"I hear horses coming."

Mrs. Potter burst into motion, moving pots off the stove and reaching under the cabinet to produce a shotgun. "Katie," she said briskly. "You know what to do."

Katie dove under the table. Will leaned over to the side to see her pulling the rug away from the trapdoor. With a practiced ease that gave Will some idea what she and Mrs. Potter had been working on while he was in town yesterday, Katie lifted the trapdoor, slid into the cellar, and closed the door after. Impressed, Will finished the deed by pulling the rug back in place with the toe of his boot.

Mrs. Potter cracked open the shotgun and loaded a pair of shells. Another handful of shells went into the pocket of her apron.

Will thought about running out to his cabin to get his rifle but, considering his current state, he was afraid he'd be more likely to accidentally shoot Mrs. Potter than he would the new arrivals, so instead he went outside to the porch and stayed there with the intention of doing his best to talk the intruders down and provide a distraction in case Mrs. Potter needed to start shooting.

What he saw when he went outside, however, made him turn right back around into the mess hall. "Mrs. Potter," he said, feeling a rising sense of doom in his gut. "Our reinforcements are here."

~~~

The tension in the air was thick enough to be cut with a knife. The shotgun was laid on the table between the two opposing parties and scathing words were so close to the surface they were nearly audible.

Will kept his head down and carefully avoided taking sides. If he'd known he was going to end this day in the same house as five females and a shotgun, he'd have gone after Jesse to help with the supplies.

"So," Mrs. Potter said crisply. "You're friends of Mr. Anderson's."

On the other side of the table were three women: Roberta, dressed in considerably more clothing than the last time Will had seen her and with her blonde hair pinned up neatly under a bonnet; Suzie, who had grown a bit since Will had last seen her and had filled out enough that she wouldn't be passing for fourteen any longer; and a woman he'd never met before, named Anne. Unlike Roberta and Suzie, Anne was not a prostitute but a female sharpshooter. She was also wearing trousers, to Mrs. Potter's disapproval. Apparently Anne's parents had been quite enamored of Annie Oakley and had given her both Oakley's name and trained her in the same profession. All of which Will learned from Suzie, as Anne was doing a marvelous imitation of the still-hidden Katie and hadn't said a word. Her eyes seemed to be locked on a specific piece of air somewhere between Will and Mrs. Potter.

While Will could not imagine how Suzie and Anne had met, he didn't miss the way they had subtly adjusted their seats so that they were sitting close enough that their arms touched from shoulder to elbow. Judging from the way Mrs. Potter's lips were pressed together, she hadn't missed the seating arrangement either.

"John and I go way back," Roberta said, and it occurred to Will that he'd never asked John how he knew Roberta. Thinking back to how John had trusted Roberta enough to not only see her in Bisbee, but to tell her where he would be staying despite the thousand dollar price on his head, that was a question Will probably should have asked.

Now wasn't the time, however, as Mrs. Potter's lips had pursed up even tighter. "Maybe you could just tell us what John told you," Will suggested.

"He sent us a telegram," Suzie said. She pulled a tiny purse from somewhere – she was dressed even more nicely than Roberta, though Will thought he'd caught a glimpse of some extremely out-of-fashion bloomers under her skirt – and pulled out a sheet of paper. "Here."

Will and Mrs. Potter both leaned in to read it: _Have immediate job STOP Good pay STOP Location A STOP Bring bullets and short shotgun STOP._

"Location A?" Will asked.

"John told me where your ranch was last time you were in Bisbee. Said if I needed a place to hide out, I could come here. Then he moved to Boston. That's location B." Roberta reached down to pick up a set of heavily-laden saddlebags. "He didn't specify which bullets to bring, so I brought some of those new .38 specials. They'll fit his revolvers and they have more kick than the .357s. Anne uses them for her rifle and swears by them."

Will looked over at Anne. Anne continued to stare at that fascinating bit of air.

"There's also a short-barreled shotgun in there, with shells," Roberta added. "If you need anything else, we'll get it for you in town."

That caught Will's and Mrs. Potter's attention. "You're going to town?"

"Suzie and I are, as soon as we're done here. Anne's going to hafta stay behind until she's needed. Way I hear it, there's no rooms left in town except at the whorehouses."

Mrs. Potter made a pained noise. Will sighed. "Have you had a chance to talk to John yet?"

"He left a letter for us in a cave a mile or so from here," Suzie said.

"Locations always have a drop point," Roberta added. "Now if you need anything, either Suzie or I'll be working at Herrod's by tonight –"

"It's a Sunday!" Mrs. Potter interjected.

Roberta just continued on. "The other'll find work in one of the other saloons, since it sounds like there's too many people participating in the tournament for Herrod's to be servicing them all. Any information Suzie and I find out, we'll be passing on to you, so if one of us asks you to come upstairs, you say yes."

"Won't anyone question why a couple of new whores are showing up right before the tournament starts?" Will asked, doing his best to ignore the disapproval wafting off of Mrs. Potter in stifling waves.

"You let us worry about that," Suzie said calmly. "While we're here, though, tell us if there's anyone you want removed from the competition."

Will's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Best you don't ask."

Less than satisfied, but quite confident Suzie wasn't going to tell him any more, Will sighed and mentally pulled up his list of gunslingers. "I don't know any of their names, but generally speaking, the more of Sutton's men who lose, the better."

"We'll keep that in mind," Suzie said. She turned to Anne. "Let's get you settled before Roberta and I leave." 

Without so much as a goodbye, the three of them marched out the door, the only lasting sign of their invasion a large bag of bullets resting on the table.

By the time Jesse got back with the supplies, Anne was ensconced in one of the cabins and Roberta and Suzie had long since left for town. Katie, having suffered no apparent ill effects from hiding in the cellar, was working on some math problems that Will had given her. She seemed to be having much more success with mathematics than she was at learning how to write, though Will had a sneaking suspicion that she understood more of her reading than she was letting on.

Jesse and his mountain of supplies were treated like a hero coming home from war. Even Will was getting tired of beans and biscuits. "Have you considered slaughtering one of the cattle?" Will asked as he helped unpack the supplies.

"It's a two-man job, even with the wagon," Jesse said. "Mrs. Potter could have helped with the butchering, but without the wagon and with most of the horses taken by the boys, we would have had to leave most of the carcass where it lay."

"Surefire way to draw coyotes onto the ranch," Will acknowledged. "But there's two of us here now, and four horses, if you count Anne's."

At which point, the presence of Anne had to be explained. Jesse looked rather astonished to know that Will was on a first-name basis with a trio of women, even after Will explained their professions. Still, he was undeniably most impressed by what he heard of Anne. "A female sharpshooter right here on our ranch," Jesse said, wonderingly. "Imagine that."

Mrs. Potter slammed a pan onto the stove.

"Maybe we should take a look at the herd," Will suggested. "See if we can't cut one out and bring it back."

Fortunately, the prospect of fresh meat for dinner was enough to motivate Jesse back into the saddle and soon enough they were riding out to the herd, comparing notes about gunslingers the entire way. "I think the others are all scared of Mr. Anderson," Jesse said conspiratorially. "Nobody will look him in the face."

"He had a reputation long before I ever met him. The books are just making that reputation bigger."

"He's a nice guy, though," Jesse said.

"Really," Will said dubiously.

"Yeah. He's been giving me tips about my shooting and what you should do in a duel. And yesterday he offered to introduce me to one of the ladies at Herrod's so I could take her to dinner."

Will looked over incredulously. "Jesse, you do know that those women are prostitutes."

"I wasn't looking to have sex with her," Jesse said, sounding offended. "I wanted to see if she'd let me get to know her better."

Will stared at him. "Feel free to tell me to go to hell if you don't want to answer this, but – have you ever had relations with a woman?"

Jesse's face turned bright red, which unfortunately clashed quite badly with his hair. "Not many chances for a guy like me."

"Jesse. There are four saloons and a whorehouse in this town alone. Three more saloons in River Bend, and you could get there and back in a day."

"I just don't think it's right to pay for it," Jesse said, his face burning. "Those kinda relations should be between people who love each other. Money shouldn't be involved."

Will thought about informing Jesse that many marriages were little more than a financial transaction. With there being so few ways for women to make money, for many of them marriage was their job and their only possible livelihood. Jesse's innocence was appealing, however, and Will was firmly of the belief that the best marriages were the ones founded on love, so he just nodded. "Surprised you haven't been out courting, then. Is the ranch not paying you enough to support a wife?"

Jesse shook his head. "It's not that. It's just – there ain't many unattached ladies in town, and most of them remember me as the sheep rancher who had to smoke meat to make ends meet. I got a steady job now, but that ain't worth as much as you'd think."

Will frowned. He could hardly tell Jesse that he'd filled out into a fine-looking man, but it was true. Will would've guessed the women in Dead Horse would have jumped to be courted by Jesse. "How often do you go into town?"

"I used to go often enough. Supplies runs once or twice a month, trips to get a haircut or to go to the bank."

"Let me guess: the haircuts and bank visits were the same days as the supply runs."

"Couldn't get away often," Jesse said defensively. "Too many boys and, well. Mrs. Potter probably wouldn't want me telling you this, but some of the boys could be kind of dangerous."

Will pulled Clarence to a halt. "What do you mean, dangerous?"

Jesse circled his horse around, looking reluctant. "Orphans don't have an easy life, Will. By the time they get here, a lot of them have violence and anger in their bones. Some learn better. Some don't."

"John and I have been getting progress reports for years. There's never been any mention of this."

"Mrs. Potter's afraid that if we told you – well, not you, Mr. Merriweather – that you'd shut down the ranch. It is a good place, for the most part. We're able to help more boys than not."

"We wouldn't have shut down the ranch," Will said, suddenly weary. "Though I can see why you wouldn't trust a man you hadn't met yet. But I wish you'd told us. We could have hired more hands to help out with the boys." He sighed and nudged Clarence into a walk. "Once the Sutton situation's taken care of, we'll look into hiring more staff. Maybe put up some more outbuildings. I saw you put up a smokehouse."

Jesse looked abashed. "Thought it would be good for the boys to learn how to cure meat."

"That was a good thought. The more skills we can give the boys, the better. I was thinking we could also put a small dairy in the barn. Maybe set aside part of the ranch for sheep so the boys can learn shearing." He thought back to the absurdly large chicken coop John had built. "Maybe get some more chickens for the coop."

Jesse winced. "We did have chickens while the boys were here. Once Sutton came into town, though, we had a tough time getting feed. Thought eating the birds would be better than them starving to death."

"Not arguing. I could tell from the state of your larder how hard life's been since Sutton came to town. I'm guessing the last money order we sent was confiscated by him."

Jesse nodded tightly.

Will blew out a breath. "Okay. I sincerely hope a situation like this never happens again, but if it does, you have permission to sell the cattle. If you have to, you can sell the goddamn ranch."

"You can't give me permission for that, it's John's ranch."

Never before had Will wanted to explain how his and John's relationship worked. Not to anyone. Part of him wanted to tell Jesse now, the desire made more powerful by the fact that it was the first time he'd experienced the feeling, but no matter how much easier it would make this argument, the argument it would cause would be far worse. So he settled for a half-truth: "John does own the ranch, but he has me handle most of the management of it." Jesse didn't look convinced, so Will added, "I'm a very popular author, Jesse. My books sell very well. I can repay John if the ranch has to be sold. I don't want you or Mrs. Potter to worry about that if the time ever comes."

Jesse rode in silence for a few minutes. "Guess it's not very likely a man like Sutton will come to town again."

"Maybe not, but if –"

"If it does, though, Mrs. Potter and I'll do what we need to. I'll make sure of it."

"Good," Will said, feeling enormously relieved. "That's good."

In the end it took them too long to find the herd. If John and Old Faithful had been with him, Will might still have attempted it, but John was miles away and Old Faithful vastly farther, and he was glad when Jesse suggested they head back without an animal.

Back at the ranch, they found a feast awaiting them: salt pork and boiled potatoes and fresh, fluffy bread. There was even a bowl of dried apples for dessert. Mrs. Potter was bustling about the kitchen, putting away the last of the supplies, cleaning up the sideboard of flour and scraps of bread dough, and setting the table. Katie and Anne were both sitting at the far end of the table, away from Mrs. Potter's activities, Katie drawing pictures of objects that began with the letters written at the top of each page and Anne cleaning her rifle. Both looked up when Will and Jesse stepped inside. Neither said a word.

Jesse, seeing Anne for the first time, turned cherry red. "H-he-hello, ma'am." Belatedly he whipped his hat off of his head, revealing flattened hair and a crease where his hatband pressed into his forehead. It was not an attractive look and Will wasn't surprised when Anne looked away, saying nothing. Didn't stop him from feeling sympathetic when Jesse's shoulders slumped, though, and he looked about for a distraction.

"Dinner looks great, Mrs. Potter. Anything I can help with?"

"Everything's ready. If we can all take a seat, I'll say the prayer."

During dinner, Will and Mrs. Potter attempted to carry the conversation, but it was difficult because all of them were distracted by Anne's bizarre way of eating. She'd taken nothing but bread and potatoes and instead of chewing like a normal person, she thoroughly mashed the potatoes before putting them in her mouth and tore the bread into tiny slivers that she nibbled on like a rabbit. Since the nibbling clearly indicated that she had all of her teeth, there was no obvious explanation for the strange eating method and Will found himself sending rather more glances in Anne's direction than was polite.

Katie, on the other hand, positively stared until Will kicked her on the ankle a few times. After that, conversation improved as Will was feeling guilty at his own behavior and, judging from their blushes, Jesse and Mrs. Potter were feeling the same.

The good food and conversation served to improve Jesse's mood and by the time dinner was over his smiles had returned. He, Will and Mrs. Potter spent an enjoyable evening discussing possible improvements to the ranch, while Katie and Anne continued their silent work.

No one mentioned the fact that the tournament started in the morning


	12. Chapter 12

The next morning, Will was up early. Restless sleep had left him with the kind of exhaustion that was only made worse by more sleep, so he dragged himself out of bed and went to start the pot of coffee. Anne was already awake and sitting in the mess hall, her entire body held rigid as she inspected bullets. Two were set aside and the rest were put into a small pouch that she tied around her belt.

"Are you planning on coming into town with us today?" Will asked. He let his eyes close as he took that first precious sip of coffee. When he opened them, he found that he was alone in the mess hall.

No direct questions to Anne. He'd have to remember that.

Mrs. Potter bustled in before Will finished his first cup of coffee and Jesse came in shortly after. Breakfast was a simple affair: pressed cereal and evaporated milk. The only sounds at the table were the wet crunches as they ate. 

They couldn't put off the inevitable for long, however, and Will sighed as he finished the last of his coffee. "Guess we should get going. See who you're fighting."

Jesse's face was so pale as to be chalky, but he nodded sharply. Both he and Will gave Mrs. Potter a hug before they left. The watery smile she offered them in return made Will's throat ache.

"Think I should say goodbye to Katie before I go?" Jesse asked as they saddled the horses.

Will thought about what he would do if they woke Katie for Jesse to say goodbye only for Will to come back that evening to tell her that Jesse was dead. "No. Considering how often we've been sneaking out of here, I think it'd just make her worried."

The ride into town was silent. Will didn't know what Jesse was thinking, but Will was considering the possibility that John might die today. If he did – well, Will hadn't forgotten what life was like after Molly's death. If it hadn't been for Mrs. Potter and her band of busybodies, Will would have followed soon after. He wasn't sure he could survive that kind of grief twice.

The town was nearly as silent as it had been when they'd arrived on Saturday. Either the majority of the gunmen didn't have qualms about drinking on Sundays or they were all naturally late sleepers.

With a full afternoon of dueling scheduled, there was no possibility of tying the horses to the hitching rail so, with little expectation of success, Will and Jesse headed to the stables. They found a temporary paddock had been put up outside the stable, with extra hooks inside for saddles. While dropping off his saddle, Will noticed that Butterscotch was ensconced in a stall; he wondered what unlucky person's horse had been evicted to make that possible.

"Now what?" Will asked as they left the stables. "Herrod's?"

"No point in putting it off," Jesse said in a strangled sounding voice. Will offered a tight smile of support and followed him to the saloon. 

Inside, they found a rather larger crowd than Will had expected, but the mood was subdued as men sat hunched over their coffees and mostly ignored both the gaming tables and the lone, tired-looking whore. He offered her a sympathetic smile, but when she started to move in his direction, he immediately shook his head.

The varying scrawled names on the board had been erased and a neat list of sixteen pairings was in its place. There was a time next to each pair; it appeared the bouts were scheduled to be set fifteen minutes apart.

After perusing the board for a good ten minutes, Jesse voiced the very question Will was thinking. "Do you think the draw was rigged?"

"I don't know," Will admitted. "I'd guess it was, but I can't tell for sure." The significant flaw in his nickname system was that right now he had no idea who any of the men were on the board, aside from the John Andersons. Those were all numbered one through six, presumably in the order that they signed up for the tournament. If that was the case, then John, the real John, was scheduled for the fifth duel, against someone named Wentworth Bailey. Will wondered if that was the Man in White. He'd sort of looked like a Wentworth.

The fourth duel was John Anderson 5, which was Little John. He was fighting an Ismael Glass.

John Anderson 3, whichever one that was, was in the very first duel, which made Will wonder if Sutton wasn't trying to weed out the amateurs before the real John Anderson took the street.

Jesse was scheduled for the last fight of the day, dueling against a Nolan Caine. "At least we have plenty of time to figure out who Nolan Caine is," Will offered when Jesse continued to stare at his name on the board.

"I need a drink," Jesse said hoarsely.

"Amen to that," Will muttered, already heading for the bar.

Jesse got a whole bottle of whisky, but they nursed their drinks, barely making a dent in the bottle by the time the saloon began to get significantly crowded. As more and more people arrived, the volume of noise rose till it was nearly at a fevered pitch, with more than one fistfight breaking out over the gambling tables.

John arrived late in the morning, a mere half hour before the tournament was about to start. Will wondered what he'd been up to the night before that made him so late, then he realized that there was a good chance John saw this list yesterday and knew he didn't have to be ready right at noon.

Ten minutes before noon, the doors opened and Sutton's entourage appeared. Will gripped his shot glass so tightly that he feared it would break in his hand, but he refrained from gulping down the contents. He needed to be alert and aware today, for John and for Jesse.

Belatedly, it occurred to him to wonder if there was even a doctor in town for the tournament. There hadn't been one when he'd left Dead Horse four years ago.

Before Will could ask Jesse about a doctor, Sutton cleared his throat. When that did little to subdue the din in the room, one of the Pinkertons shouted, "Quiet! _Quiet!_ "

Slowly the cacophony silenced. "Thank you," Sutton said. "As you know, the first annual Liberty Gunslinging Tournament is to begin in ten minutes. For the first round of the tournament, each match will last up to a quarter of an hour. The beginning of the match will be marked by me calling 'time'. You may fire beginning at that moment. Anyone who fires early will be put down by my men." There was a long pause as Sutton looked around the room. Will didn't think it was imagination that the Pinkertons started fondling their shotguns at that moment.

After the lengthy pause, Sutton continued. "You are allowed to fire as many bullets as your gun can carry, but reloading will not be allowed. The man left standing at the end of the duel is the winner." He took a deep breath and reached into his pocket to pull out a gold watch. "My watch will be the official timepiece for the event. At this moment in time it says it is 11:54 a.m. Adjust your own watches accordingly." 

Will snorted at the idea that most of the scruffy men in the room could even afford a watch. Most would be using the clock in the saloon, which looked to be a minute slow.

Sutton gave no notice of the inaccurate clock, and just continued his speech. "Anyone who does not show up on time will be disqualified and ejected from the town. I am very excited about the outcome of these duels, gentlemen, and I'd hate to be disappointed." He checked his watch again. "I suggest we move to the street. The first duel starts in five minutes."

There was an immediate stampede for the doors. From the safety of his corner of the saloon, Will watched as John and Sutton's group were caught up in the wash and ended out in the street. Will and Jesse followed once the flood had mostly abated, though once they reached the outdoors, Will realized the flaw in their plan: from their position behind the rest of the crowd, there wasn't much to be seen. Jesse seemed content to crane his head over the top of the crowd, but Will wanted, at the very least, to see which John Anderson was fighting before the man was shot, so he slid along the wall of the buildings until he reached the very edge of the crowd, putting him almost directly in line with John Anderson 3, who ended up being Poor John. From this angle and distance, Will couldn't see anything of John's opponent, so he focused instead on taking in as much detail about Poor John as possible, from the boy's shabby suit – the same one he'd been wearing on Saturday – to his pristinely combed and hatless head to the spotless Colt Peacemaker he had on his belt. Will hadn't seen many men wearing Colts to the tournament; the Smith & Wesson #3 American was apparently the preferred gun for a quickdraw competition, maybe because the top break design made them easy to reload in tournaments with less stringent rules.

Still, John's gun was a Colt and that meant they were familiar to Will, especially after writing stories featuring them for years. Maybe those stories were why Poor John was wearing a Colt. Maybe he couldn't afford a newer gun. Maybe he just liked the gun because of how it performed. Whatever the reason, it made Will go from indifference to the outcome of the duel to actively offering silent support to Poor John.

"One minute!" Sutton shouted, dragging Will's attention away from Poor John. The crowd shifted slightly and Will caught a quick glimpse of John's opponent: it was one of the Poker Players, the one who had joked about the number of John Andersons signed up for the tournament. The fact that said Player was currently facing one of those Johns did nothing to assuage Will's suspicions that the competition was rigged.

"Ten!"

Will's eyes turned to Sutton, who was staring at his watch.

"Nine!"

A glance to Sutton's right, where Jacob was sitting on a cushioned stool and staring avidly at Poor John.

"Eight!"

A quick glance over the crowd revealed the real John was looking directly at Will.

"Seven!"

Will smiled at John, but forced himself to look away before anyone noticed the exchange.

"Six!"

Poor John's stance shifted as he turned to fully face his opponent.

"Five!"

Poor John pulled back his coat, completely exposing his gun.

"Four!"

Poor John's hand hovered over the handle of the weapon and his eyes narrowed.

"Three!"

Will risked a glance at the other side of the street, poking his head out enough to see that the Player was also in a shooting stance.

"Two!"

Poor John's fingers were brushing his gun now, and his entire body was a twisted coil of tension.

"Time!"

Two shots rang out, so close that they almost sounded like one. 

The crowd surged forward a like an ambitious wave pushing just a few inches higher up on a beach, completely blocking Will's view of the other end of the street. Just looking at Poor John was enough, however; he was standing tall and his arm was held out, steadily pointing his gun at his opponent. There was no blood in sight.

From over the heads of the crowd, Will heard a man shout, "He's dead!" and Poor John immediately lowered his gun. He didn't look distressed or sad or sick. If Will hadn't heard the shout, he would never have realized that Poor John had just killed another human being.

The spectators suddenly burst into cheers and swept forth into the street. Most went to Poor John, crowding around him until the man himself was completely hidden to outside eyes. A few headed for the dead man, most to pick over his body for loot, but a few who looked genuinely sad that he was gone. This latter group mostly consisted of the other poker players, who looked universally grim.

"Next fight's in ten minutes!" Sutton shouted. Will didn't think anyone else heard, but he turned himself around and went into Herrod's. He needed a drink.

The second duel was between two people who weren't named John Anderson and as Will downed his third shot in as many minutes, he seriously contemplated skipping the fight altogether. 

As he lifted his glass for a fourth time, a hand laid itself over the top of the glass and pushed it back down to the table.

Taken aback, Will stared at the glass for a second before looking up.

Roberta stared back.

Will opened his mouth, but Roberta put a finger over his lips. "Come on, sugar. Let me make you feel good."

Will didn't think it was possible to feel good. Not at that moment, maybe never again. He kept that opinion to himself, however, as he followed Roberta up the stairs to a narrow hallway lined with more doors than one usually saw in an establishment that ostensibly provided rooms for rent. Roberta opened the door directly to the left of the stairs, revealing a very small room almost entirely taken up by a crumpled, well-used bed. Will stared at that bed in horror. "You don't want us to –"

Roberta was rolling her eyes. "Of course not. John would kill me. And he's going to kill you if you're too drunk to see him fight. I'd prefer not to see that happen, so you can watch the next couple of fights in here. Then you need to go down and steer clear of the bottle on the way to the street. Okay?"

"I'd really rather not watch any more fights," Will said honestly. Then he scowled. He hadn't meant to say that.

"I don't give a good goddamn what you want, Will. John is putting his life on the line for this town; the least you can do is watch."

Will blinked at her, feeling suitably chastised. "Yes, ma'am."

She nodded sharply. "Good. You've got twenty minutes, then you need to get down. I don't want the barkeep wondering why it's taking so long."

Truth be told, Will thought twenty minutes was a bit excessive for the kind of sex a man had with a whore, but he wasn't about to turn down the gift, so he went to the window without comment. It had a perfect view of the street. "How'd you get this room, anyway?"

"Wasn't hard," Roberta said from right behind him. He shifted over so she could see the view as well. "Just explained to the girl who was here how often bullets went astray in gunfights. She was plenty happy to swap rooms after that." Roberta nodded over at the far end of the street. "That's one of Sutton's deputies."

"So's the one on this end, I think," Will said thoughtfully. "He's one of the poker players." He looked over at Roberta. "You think this tournament is rigged?"

"It is rigged. They drew the names at random, but last night when everyone else was asleep I snuck out to see Sutton changing some of the names on the board. He didn't change all of the names, though, just a few."

"Probably he changed who John was fighting."

"I'm sure." She nodded down in the street. "Doubt he bothered with this one, though, not unless he has a few guns that are just a bit too strong, or too weak, or too disloyal for him to want to keep."

"I'm guessing a man like Sutton would have all three." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "John tell you about Jacob Landon?"

She nodded grimly. "Not the first time I heard of a situation like that. Happens more often with boys than you'd think. Single man with a girl has to do some explaining. No one asks questions of a single man with a boy." Suddenly she straightened. "Looks like the next fight is about to start."

Will reluctantly turned his attention back to the street. From this distance he couldn't make out the men's expressions, but he could see the way their stances widened as they faced each other. Sutton started counting down the last ten seconds, his voice carrying well even to the second floor of the saloon.

The second he called time, the two men fired. One fell to the ground and a man with bright blond hair and carrying a black bag ran forward. "Who's the doctor?" Will asked as the doc declared the downed man dead. The man still standing – the poker player – raised his arms and shot twice into the sky, dancing a bit in excitement.

"Think he's someone Sutton brought in from Mexico. Suzie might know better; I think he's staying in her saloon."

Will nodded, his eyes still locked on the street. It was easier to watch from up here, he decided. A man's death didn't seem as immediate when he was separate from the cheering crowd and the celebrating victor.

Roberta started speculating on the next fight and it occurred to Will that she knew far more about gunfighting than he did. When he asked her about it, she shrugged. "Seen a lot of duels in Bisbee, mostly between men who've drunk more than they should. Happens less often these days, since there's more law out here. I didn't think it'd be possible to see another tournament like Stone used to throw; imagine this one'll probably be the last, if John does his job right."

Will stared at Roberta, his interest in the next two fighters completely forgotten. "You knew Tanner Stone?"

Roberta frowned. "Didn't John tell you how we met?"

"It hasn't come up," Will said, feeling vaguely guilty.

Roberta looked away, appearing uncertain for the first time since he'd met her. "It ain't a pretty story."

"After the last few weeks, I'm starting to forget pretty stories even exist." When Roberta didn't seem convinced, Will added gently, "Tell me anyway."

She bowed her head for a moment before sighing and leaning back against the wall. "I was so very young and so very innocent. You have to keep that in mind, because otherwise it's hard believe that I could've been so damn stupid. Though, in my defense, other women answered those advertisements and found everything they were looking for."

"Advertisements?"

"For brides," Roberta said with a bitter smile. "I was a mail-order bride."

"Oh," Will said, feeling ill as he realized where this story was leading. "For one of Stone's men?"

"For _all_ of Stone's men. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. I just knew there was a man named Tanner Stone who lived in Arizona and was advertising for a wife. His advertisement said that he'd struck gold and was a wealthy man who just needed a companion to make his life complete. I was fifteen when I saw that advertisement, living in Pittsburgh. My daddy was killed the year before in the railroad strike riots and my momma couldn't hardly feed me and my sisters on the money she made washing coal dust off the windows in rich folks' homes. I figured at least going west would be an adventure, with clean air and a good home waiting for me.

"Instead, the stagecoach dropped me off in the middle of the desert, twenty miles from a town in either direction. I was a little comforted when I first saw Stone – he was a handsome man, you know, when he was younger – and I even thought I was having my adventure when he had me ride pillion on his horse as we went back to his gang. The whole way he was talking about Mormons and how all of those Mormon men could have as many wives as they wanted. I didn't think anything of it until we were almost at the camp and he said – I'll never forget this – _'It's not hardly fair for the women. Not only don't they get the chance to have more than one husband, they have to share the one they do get.'_ That's when I started to realize I was in trouble, but by then it was too late. We were already in the camp and there were dozens of men around, all of them cheering as Stone rode in."

She took a deep, shaky breath. "I don't know –"

A pair of gunshots rang out and Roberta and Will both turned to see that the next duel was already over, with one poker player left standing and the blond poker player lying on the ground. Will shook his head, wondering if it was chance or Sutton that put all of the poker players in the first few duels. At least this time the downed man was still moving. Maybe he'd survive.

"You should go," Roberta said.

"I'd rather hear the rest of your story," Will said. He wasn't being completely honest, but he didn't think she would have told as much as she had if she didn't really want to get the words off her chest.

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Stone had a preacher there. Don't know where he found him or how he convinced him to do it, but the preacher held a wedding ceremony marrying me to the entire gang. I cried and pleaded and begged him to stop, but he never once looked at me and the more I sobbed, the more the gang laughed.

"When the preacher was done, Stone killed him." Roberta's voice cracked on the last word and for a moment she covered her face with her hands. When she looked up her eyes were red-rimmed, but dry. "I don't remember much of what happened after that, for which I'm grateful. I just know that when I came back to myself I was lying in the back of a shallow cave, my hands and feet tied." She managed a tiny smile. "Stupid bastards had tied my hands in front of me. My whole face hurt – I think they must've beaten me – but I managed to get my hands free and then my feet.

"I was sneaking out of the cave when I ran into John.

"Of course, I didn't know who he was at the time, I just thought he was another man coming to rape me. I couldn't scream, because that would just bring more men to hurt me, so I tried to dodge around him. He grabbed me and I tried to bite him, so he covered my mouth and whispered in my ear that there was a horse just outside the camp and that he'd distract the guards for me."

"And you trusted him?" Will asked.

"What else could I do? A chance at escape was better than no escape at all. And when I snuck out past the camp, there the horse was, just like the man had said. It was even saddled and in the saddlebags I found food and money and a map to the nearest town. No gun, though – I think he knew if he gave me a gun I'd've turned right back around and gotten myself killed trying to put a bullet into Stone's head.

"I probably wouldn't have survived if Stone's camp hadn't been so close to Yuma. It was a big enough town to have a small hospital, and the money John gave me was enough to pay for my treatment. It didn't last much longer than that, though, and there isn't much a woman can do out west. Soiled as I was, I couldn't marry and I had no skills as a seamstress or a teacher. That just left whoring."

Will cursed. Roberta's eyes softened and she put a hand on Will's arm. "Women don't become prostitutes for pleasure, Will. It's what they do when they have no better options left."

"But how did you end up in Bisbee?"

Out on the street, Sutton called one minute to the next duel. Roberta shook her head. "That'll have to be a story for another time. You can stay here and watch this duel, but then you have to leave. John's next."

Will eyed her for a second, then nodded. "Listen, I don't know what John promised you for this, but if you want, we'll bring you to Boston with us. On top of your payment. Suzie and Anne, too, if they want to come."

"Thank you, Will," Roberta said, and Will didn't think it was his imagination that her voice was a little lighter than it had been before.

He turned his attention to the street, where Little John was facing off against yet another poker player. Adding them up in his head, Will realized this was the last one. Even if he survived, the table was going to be very empty tomorrow. "Who do you favor?" he asked as Sutton started counting down.

"The dwarf," Roberta said immediately. "You don't have time to aim in quickdraw, so when you're practicing you spend most of your time learning to shoot the exact same spot every time you draw. That spot is usually a man's chest, where a bit of error won't make much difference. Against a man as small as the dwarf –"

Gunshots went off. Little John's hat went flying, while the last poker player collapsed on the ground.

"– that would put the bullet right above his head. And now it's time for you to go."

Will sighed, but nodded his understanding. He turned to leave, but at the last second turned back to kiss Roberta on the cheek. "I'm glad to know you, Roberta ..." He trailed off, realizing he'd never asked her last name.

"Bean," she said with a slight smile. "Roberta Bean."

"It's very nice to meet you, Roberta Bean," Will said, smiling back. "I look forward to getting to know you better." He pressed her hands between his own, then finally took his leave, feeling that he had gone into the room to meet a stranger and had left the room with a friend.


	13. Chapter 13

Will thought the crowd for the first duel had been bad, but it was nothing compared to the crowd for John's. This time, however, Will wasn't willing to stand at the edges, so he shoved his way through the thickest part of the mass of people, elbowing bodies aside with abandon and ignoring all protests, until he emerged mere feet away from where John was standing. 

For a man facing possible death, John looked amazingly relaxed. His back was straight, his shoulders were loose, and there was a casual cant to his hips. He was even smiling a little, the same smile he had when he was working on his chicken castle designs.

In contrast, Wentworth Bailey – who wasn't the Man in White after all – looked a half-second away from pissing his pants. His hair was in shambles, as if he'd been running his fingers through it, his hands were shaking, and every few seconds he adjusted his suit jacket. It was a nice suit, almost as nice as John's, and Will couldn't help but wonder if the young man had come from back east for a little adventure and, like Roberta, gotten himself into a dangerous situation through his naiveté.

Part of Will desperately hoped that John didn't kill this man, who was barely more than a boy and who had a whole life ahead of him. That was the part of him trying to forget what Roberta had said about how impossible it was to aim in a quickdraw competition. The rest of Will, the significant majority, wanted John to live, even if it meant this poor boy had to die.

Sutton began the countdown. Will swallowed hard and looked between the two duelists. John had settled into a tight but comfortable looking stance. Down the street, Wentworth Bailey stood more awkwardly, his fingers so close to his gun handle that it looked like it was already in his hand.

"Five!"

The crowd's murmurs started dying away.

"Four!"

John crouched a little lower.

"Three!"

Wentworth Bailey narrowed his eyes.

"Two!"

Will gritted his teeth.

"Time!"

The gunshots rang out, but neither man fell. Will's eyes ran frantically over John's body, looking for even the slightest hint of blood.

A loud sob was heard over the hush of the crowd and Will turned to look down to the other side of the street. There he saw Bailey staring at his blood-covered hands as red fluid sprayed out of a hole in his leg, splattering in an arc before falling down to the hard-packed dirt.

Will looked back at John, whose face was drawn. John's lips shaped the word, "Damn," but he didn't make a sound.

The doctor was already running out into the street. "Sorry son," he told the wailing Bailey, who had collapsed onto his rump in the packed dirt, his blood-soaked hands futilely trying to clamp his wound. "Looks like he hit an artery."

"Did you see that?" someone whispered behind Will. "He was aiming for his leg."

"Damn fool if he was," another, gruffer, voice answered. "You don't shoot to kill, you don't deserve to live."

The doctor looked up from Bailey's leg, shaking his head. Bailey's wails were already losing some of their intensity and a few minutes later, they stopped. The crowd surged forward to congratulate the victor, only to discover that they all, including Will, had been too distracted and had missed the man walking away.

Will swore under his breath and debated leaving to look for John. Unfortunately that wasn't possible, as fighting free of the crowd would cause even more of a fuss than fighting to get to the front of it had. He couldn't risk any extra attention being directed his way, especially when there was any chance of someone seeing him with John.

Humpty Dumpty stepped out into the street in front of Will; apparently Bailey had taken long enough to die that it was already time for the next duel. On the other side was the Man in White and the moment he stepped onto the street, the crowd started murmuring. It seemed the Man in White had some sort of special new kind of pistol that didn't use a revolving cylinder. Will couldn't bring himself to care. All he could think about was John, who had just killed a man he'd intended to spare and was now somewhere in town all alone.

In the end, the Man in White won the duel. Will didn't even bother waiting to see if Humpty Dumpty survived; he was too busy taking advantage of the shifting of the crowd to slip away.

John, as it turned out, was not hard to find as he was the only person left in Herrod's saloon. Even the barkeep had abandoned his post to watch the fight; John must have helped himself to the bottle of liquor in front of him.

"John," Will said softly.

John didn't so much as flinch, just downed the contents of his glass and muttered, "Upstairs."

Will went up the stairs without question.

The speed with which Roberta opened the door meant she'd probably been waiting for them. "You have twenty minutes. There's an intermission after the eighth fight and men are going to want some servicing."

"We'll be out by then," Will promised. "Thank you."

She just nodded at them in turn, and closed the door behind her as she left the room.

The moment they were alone, Will pulled John into an embrace. John's arms clutched at Will, latching onto him like he was a lifeline. "I didn't mean to kill him," John whispered. "He wasn't supposed to die."

"I know," Will murmured back. "It's okay. You did your best."

They held on for several precious minutes, Will acutely aware of every second that passed. Finally John cleared his throat and stepped back, dropping down to sit on the rumpled bed. "How's Katie doing? Mrs. Potter?"

"They're fine. A little worried, maybe, but they'll survive. Katie actually said something."

John looked gutted. "I wish I'd been there to hear. What'd she say?"

"'Don't go.'" Will chewed on his lip, debating, before finally admitting, "Mrs. Potter thinks we should adopt her."

John's eyes shot up to meet Will's. "Do you think we can?"

"Probably not legally, but we could always say that she's Charles Merriweather's niece. If you want."

John's mouth opened immediately, his eyes alight with eagerness, but before any words slipped free, his eyes dulled. "Shouldn't make any promises. Not now."

"Not yet, you mean," Will said firmly.

"Sure. Not yet. That's what I meant."

More priceless, irretrievable seconds slipped by. "John, I want you to promise me something."

John looked up, life returning to his face. "Anything, Will, you know that."

"I want you to survive." John opened his mouth, but Will went on before he could speak. "No, John. The men in this tournament, they all knew what they were doing when they signed up. Whether it was for glory or for a job with Sutton or to win that prize money. Maybe they were too ignorant to understand that they could die out there, maybe they were too naive to understand that there were men who were better than they were. Either way, I don't care. You aren't here for glory or riches, you're here to save this town and I refuse to lose you because you're worrying more about limiting your opponent's injuries than you are about protecting yourself. I want you to survive and, frankly, I don't care if you have to kill every one of your opponents between now and the end of the tournament if that means you live."

John stared at him. "I never thought I'd hear you say something like that."

"Neither did I," Will admitted, slipping down to sit next to John. "But I've learned a lot on this trip of ours, not least of which is what is most important to me. I know you made a promise to me four years ago. I also know you aren't the same man as you were then. If you kill someone now, I know that it was because you didn't have a choice otherwise."

"You have a lot of faith in me."

"No more faith than you deserve." 

Will reached over and took John's hand in his own. "Our time's almost up. I'll go first." He squeezed John's hand tightly, and leaned over for a kiss. "Remember, you will survive. I'm not going to accept anything else."

Without waiting for a reply, Will slipped out the door and hurried down the stairs to the outside exit. He needed some time alone, away from this crowd and its murderous glee.

~~~

By the time he made it back to Herrod's, there was a gunman on the street; a tall, lanky man who was casually chewing the end of a long piece of straw. He looked bored.

The onlookers surrounding the street, on the other hand, were positively alight with anticipation. Will glanced over to see Sutton staring at his watch as if it'd insulted his mother. "It is now three p.m.," Sutton announced. "Where is Eli?"

There was murmuring amongst the crowd before one man raised his hand. "Last I saw, he was going upstairs with a whore."

Sutton's face darkened. "How unfortunate that a man should be more interested in what he finds between a woman's legs than employment with me." 

At that moment a man burst through the saloon's doors, his shirt unbuttoned and his pants halfway down his legs. "Mr. Sutton, sir!" the man, presumably Eli, shouted. "I'm so sorry, sir, I lost track of time!"

Sutton turned to the Pinkerton standing next to him, the same one who'd been conversing with him a couple of nights before. "Mr. Clayton, I believe you know what to do."

Clayton stood up, lifting his shotgun. The crowd lurched as people started shoving and suddenly Eli was standing all alone, surrounded by a wide barrier of open space that moved with him as the crowd shifted at every one of his steps. 

"I don't take kindly to people with poor priorities," Sutton said loudly. "Certainly not when those people are my employees. Mr. Clayton, if you please."

A shotgun blast roared and Eli's bare chest erupted in fresh fountains of blood. He stumbled back several steps and when he finally fell, it was through the saloon's swinging doors.

Next to Will, a young boy giggled. "This is fun! I hope we can have a turneyment every year!"

Will swallowed down a throat full of bile and took a few careful steps back, gently separating himself from the rest of the gawking crowd, though it put him in the street. Looking up, he found the center window and saw Roberta looking through the window down at him. She winked.

_Jesus,_ Will thought. He reminded himself that he was the one who told Roberta and Suzie to take Sutton's men out of competition and made himself nod back. He felt an awful powerful craving for a drink right then, preferably one at a different saloon.

He made himself turn his back on the idea and stepped back up onto the boardwalk. Roberta was here to help this town, just as John was. The fact that she'd done exactly what he asked of her was not something on which he could take a moral high ground. They'd all agreed that Sutton had to die. That wouldn't be possible if they all fell apart on the very first day of their campaign to free the town.

Feeling very much like the weak link in an otherwise unexpectedly strong chain, Will allowed himself to be shuffled to the back of the crowd. He wouldn't permit himself to run away to a bottle of liquor, but he thought he could still give himself a break from watching these men kill themselves. Just a short one, he told himself. Till he was more composed.

Three duels later, Will was in one of the side alleys when Jesse found him. Taking in his friend's slightly green features and shaking hands, Will felt like a heel. "Nervous?" he asked. Jesse sent him a scathing look. "Stupid question," Will acknowledged. "Anything I can do to help?"

"I was thinking of having a drink," Jesse admitted. "But I was afraid it'd mess up my shooting."

"Probably true." Will personally had a much better idea than a drink for calming a man down, but he wasn't sure how Jesse would take it and he wasn't entirely comfortable with making the suggestion without checking with Roberta. Still, he couldn't just leave Jesse like this. "Jesse –" He looked around. "Come with me for a bit."

Looking curious, Jesse followed Will into the saloon. As expected, it was nearly empty aside from a handful of whores. One of them was Roberta, who was heading toward the stairs with a bottle in hand. She took one look at Jesse before locking eyes with Will and pointing to the stairs. Will nodded back, pushing down an unpleasant mix of relief and guilt as he settled himself on a barstool to give her time to leave the room before saying, "You know how you're waiting for sex with a woman? For it to be special?" Jesse nodded warily. "How special does it need to be, exactly? Does it absolutely have to be marriage? Or would you be willing to allow a woman to introduce you into the ways of love, as a friendly gesture?"

"That's awfully friendly," Jesse said dubiously, his eyes flickering towards a couple of whores across the room who were watching with open interest.

"As it happens, I know a very nice, very friendly woman who is upstairs right now. She's a friend of mine and of John's, and I think she'd really like to help you relax before your fight."

Jesse somehow managed to go another shade paler. "I don't know, Will. What if I'm late?"

"You won't be, I swear. If I have to, I'll break down that door to get you to the fight on time."

Jesse still looked conflicted. "I did want to wait for marriage, Will. Or at least love."

Will gritted his teeth. "Jesse –" He took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm not saying you have to have sex with her. Just – go in there and talk to the woman. She'll help you get into the right frame of mind for the fight."

Jesse considered that for a moment. "Do you think she'll really be able to help?"

"I have the upmost faith in her."

"Okay," Jesse said. "Okay. I'll meet her." He glanced at the whores. "Just to talk, though."

"Great," Will said, already hustling Jesse up the stairs before he could change his mind. "Now the lady in question is Roberta, who you've already met once before –"

"How do you know where her room is? Did you –"

"Not the time, Jesse." Will knocked on the door. "Just remember, be respectful and don't worry. Roberta'll take care of you."

Except Roberta wasn't the one to open the door. "John! What are you doing here?"

Jesse cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Mr. Anderson, we didn't mean to interrupt your, uh, intimate time with –"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Roberta said, appearing at the door as well. Jesse seemed both surprised and relieved to find her fully dressed. "He stopped by for a chat and he was just leaving."

Will glanced at John, who nodded slightly and lifted up the bottle that Roberta had taken up the stairs with her. "Just looking for a quiet place to have a drink."

"And I told him that the drink would have to wait till later," Roberta said firmly. "When I'm off the clock. Now, Will, was there something I could help you with?"

"Jesse here has a fight in forty minutes or so," Will said, since Jesse had suddenly grown very fascinated with the tips of his boots. "Since he's understandably nervous, I thought you might be willing to lend a hand. I told him you might be able to talk him into the right frame of mind."

Roberta's eyebrows shot up. "Talk?"

Will nodded.

She looked Jesse up and down with new interest. "We do want our boys to be in fighting form and I have been told that my mouth can work magic. Come on in, honey; let's get you relaxed." Giving Will and John not so much as a second glance, Roberta chivvied Jesse into her room and shut the door.

Will and John stared at the closed door. "Really, Will? This is the time you choose to initiate the virgin?"

"Hey, you were the one who told me there were three ways to relax a man. There's no work around here and whisky before a gunfight is a bad idea. That just leaves sex."

"Or talking, apparently."

"Somehow I think Roberta is going to end up doing more than talking to him." Will stole a quick glance up and down the hall, then leaned forward to press his lips against John's. "I miss you."

"It's only been a few days," John noted. When Will raised an eyebrow, he added, "A few torturously long days. I'm putting my foot down. Once we get this settled, we are never spending the night in separate beds again."

"Amen," Will breathed, and stole one more kiss before heading back down the stairs to continue the charade.


	14. Chapter 14

While Will had been talking with Jesse, it appeared that Sneaky John had lost to a gentleman named Archibald Oneill, thereby proving that sometimes an average man was just an average man. Will had to acknowledge that he'd been worried about the wrong fake John Anderson. Out of all of them, he'd now bet that Poor John was the greatest threat.

The next fight was between the last John Anderson and Forest Dotson. The latter was one of the few names he recognized off of the board that wasn't a John; Forest had been a cowboy on Grady's ranch back when Will was still living in the area. Considering the number of times Forest came by to threaten Will on behalf of his former boss, Will wasn't real surprised that he was now working for Sutton.

When Will went outside, he found the crowd considerably diminished from its height during the real John's fight. It made sense as John was the biggest name in the tournament and the last couple of amateur Johns hadn't put up much of a fight. Will decided just to be grateful that he didn't have to hit anyone on his way through to find a spot on the rail as the two combatants entered the field.

An interested murmur rippled through the crowd as everyone caught sight of Big John's gun. Will himself raised his eyebrows at the Walker Colt; he hadn't seen one in over a decade. Even then it had been considered mostly obsolete as it still had to be loaded with gunpowder and a lead ball, all topped with candle wax to keep the entire gun from exploding when it fired. Not to mention the damn thing weighed four and a half pounds before it was even loaded. It was a brave – or foolish – man who would carry such a gun to a quickdraw fight.

More murmuring heralded the arrival of Forest, who looked to be limping slightly. Sutton looked put out to see his deputy looking less than his best against a man bringing a cannon to a gunfight. "Dotson! What happened to you?"

"Must've stepped on a splinter," Forest answered, getting into place. 

"A splinter," Sutton repeated flatly.

Will, who knew from previous experience that a splinter in the wrong place could hurt more than a bloody gash might, felt a surprising stab of sympathy for Forest as he found himself obviously floundering in the face of his boss's derision. "It's not a big deal, Mr. Sutton," Forest answered after a moment. "No reason to postpone the fight."

"I should think not," Sutton scoffed. "Postponing a fight for a splinter. Don't be ridiculous."

Forest smiled tightly at his employer and got ready to face off against Big John as Sutton opened his watch. Will eyed Forest as he settled down into the most ridiculous stance imaginable, with one foot barely touching the ground and all of his weight on the other foot. Will couldn't imagine how Forest could shoot a gun without falling over standing that way, much less hit a target.

As Sutton started the countdown and Big John crouched down into a stance of his own, Will shook his head and let his eyes wander over the crowd. They clearly knew the same thing he did: this fight was over before it started.

Movement caught his eye on the far end of the crowd, as someone stepped out of a saloon a few doors down from Herrod's. That someone was small – though not as small as she had once been – with her dark hair currently pinned up into a modest bun and a shawl covering her dress's extravagantly low neckline. Suzie, because of course that's who the woman was, nodded slightly to Will as gunfire filled the air.

Will turned back to see that Forest was, as expected, lying on the ground, a massive hole in his head. When he turned back to nod to Suzie, however, she had disappeared.

With only one more fight left until Jesse's, it seemed pointless to leave the rail, though most of the crowd seemed to disagree, judging by the number of them who flooded into the saloons. Will didn't expect many of them would be coming back out; Big John was the last well-known name to duel for the day. The majority of the crowd likely had never even heard of Jesse Harper, and certainly didn't care if Jesse lived or died.

Will hoped Roberta was showing Jesse the time of his life. Just in case.

~~~

The second to last duel of the day resulted in yet another death and Will was slightly appalled to realize that he'd gone from horrified at the first death of the day to barely shocked at the latest. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he was capable of feeling any strong emotions at all at the moment; his whole body felt numb and his thoughts were muted, like they'd been covered by a thick blanket.

A moving shadow caught the corner of Will's eye. He turned to see John propped on the rail a couple of feet away, far enough that it didn't look like they were standing there together. Just two men getting ready to watch a fight who happened to land next to each other.

Will quickly put his head forward, then changed his mind and turned around entirely, so that his back was leaning up against the rail and he was looking the opposite direction of John. "Jesse coming down soon?"

"I gave them a five minute warning. Roberta'll make sure he gets down on time."

"Good. That's good." Will held his tongue as one of Sutton's deputies walked past and into the saloon. Once the coast was clear, he added, "She told me how you two met."

"It's a nasty tale."

Will shrugged. "It appears there's only so much death and misery a man can take in a day. Right now I feel numb." After a moment of silence, he added, "What do you think Jesse's chances are?"

"Honestly? In a fair fight against most of the men in this tournament, I doubt he'd survive the first round. But I don't think Roberta and Suzie will let that happen. Especially not now; I think Roberta's taken a shine to him."

Will's heart clenched; apparently he wasn't as numb as he thought. "God," he choked out. "Why did we let him do this?"

"He's a grown man," John said, his voice more gentle than his words. "It was his decision."

Will nodded tightly, grateful when another man walked past, giving him an excuse to be silent for a few moments. Once he did speak, it was to change the subject. "You should know that I promised Roberta that we'd bring her and the others with us to Boston."

"I was planning on doing that anyway," John said. "And setting them up in a house once we got there. The kinda favors they're doing us, they deserve a big reward."

Before Will could answer, the saloon doors opened and Jesse stumbled out, still tucking his shirt into his pants. A small crowd of men followed, laughing and cheering along the way.

Another man, wearing a deputy badge and carrying a glass of something that might've been whisky though it was a bit too reddish in color, strode out after them. He knocked back the contents of his glass in one gulp and let out a shout as he threw the glass against the side of the saloon, shattering it. "Last duel of the day, boys," he crowed. "Time to put this feller to bed!"

Will swallowed hard and allowed himself one quick glance at John as he twisted around to face the street. John didn't seem to notice, all of his attention on Jesse's opponent, who had stepped down onto the street and was now lifting one arm and then the other, flapping them like a bird whose wings were out of synch. "Damn good whisky," the man muttered, staring at his own arms.

Will shook his head. "Remind me never to get on Roberta's bad side."

On the other side of the street, Sutton came out with his usual entourage, Jacob at his side. Judging from Sutton's expression, he wasn't happy to see one of his deputies making an ass of himself in the middle of the street. He spoke a whispered word to one of the Pinkertons and the man unholstered his pistol and put a bullet into the dirt between the inebriated man's feet. Said man looked down at the hole in the dirt, his expression more fascinated than scared. "Get into position," Sutton called. The silent _you idiot_ on the end was heard by everyone, except possibly the man to whom the words were addressed.

By the time the deputy had been harried into place, the official start time of the duel had passed. Sutton looked like he was seriously contemplating having his deputy shot in the head, but either he liked this man more than the last one he had shot or he considered the fact that both men were on the street when they were supposed to be a mitigating factor, even if one of the men hadn't been ready to shoot. At any rate, he declared a new, arbitrary start time at five past the hour and everyone stood there, waiting for the time to tick past.

While waiting, Will noticed that the crowd around them had swelled a little. Apparently some folks inside had noticed the delay and were curious as to the cause. The new arrivals meant more people pushing to the front, and all too soon someone noticed the gap between Will and John and elbowed himself forward. The man was a none too clean smelling stranger and Will found himself just hoping for this fight to start. Preferably before Jesse's nerves got the best of him; he looked ready to snap.

Finally, Sutton started the countdown. Will focused his attention on Jesse, offering up prayers and sending mental encouragement. Mrs. Potter would never forgive him if Jesse died here today. Hell, Will would never forgive himself.

Sutton called time and Will tensed in preparation for a gunshot. Except there wasn't one. 

Belatedly, Jesse reached for his gun, but he fumbled it while trying to get out of the holster, and his first shot went wild. 

The sound of the shot seemed to wake up the deputy, who had been staring off into the sky with a peaceful look on his face, and he managed a much smoother draw. Not that it mattered as his shot went wild, too. 

Jesse stood there, looking uncertain as to what to do next. Will shouted, "Keep shooting!"

The man next to him added, "You idiot!"

Will groaned. To his relief, however, Jesse put up his gun and actually spent a second aiming before taking his second shot. This one hit his target, albeit high up on the deputy's shoulder where it didn't do much aside from tick the man off. "You son of a bitch!" the deputy shouted, lifting his own gun. Once again, he missed.

The entire crowd was watching avidly now, with chuckles and at times outright laughter running through the mass of people. 

"This competition is first down, not first blood," Sutton roared. "Keep shooting!"

Jesse immediately lifted his gun and fired, this time not stopping until his clip was empty.

The deputy was leaking blood like a sieve now, with holes in his gut, his non-shooting shoulder, his leg, and his side. The man didn't even seem to notice, however, and just lifted his own gun as calmly as you please. Jesse did what any reasonable man would do under the circumstances, and dove for the ground.

The crowd erupted in laughter.

Of course, the deputy missed, and he kept on missing since he apparently didn't even notice that his opponent was lying in the dirt. Even after he ran out of bullets, he kept pulling the trigger, dropping the hammer down on spent cartridges.

Judging from the cheers and hollering, the crowd had never been so entertained in its life. Across the way, Sutton looked like he was having an apoplexy, his face nearly purple with outrage. "You! Both of you! Come here!"

Jesse cautiously stood up. The moment he achieved his feet, the deputy toppled over. The crowd was howling now, some men actually doubled over in mirth.

After a hesitation, Jesse made a couple of half-hearted attempts to brush himself off and then stiffly made his way over to where Sutton was sitting. The doctor had run out the moment the deputy had fallen, and was now frantically cutting away the man's clothing. Personally, Will was astonished the man was still alive and he wondered if the man was naturally resilient, or if whatever Roberta had spiked his whisky with had given him some unexpectedly positive side effects.

While the doctor worked on the deputy, Sutton appeared to be yelling at Jesse, though his voice wasn't loud enough to carry to where the crowd was. Jesse's head was down low and his face was red, but he just kept nodding, over and over again.

Finally the doctor sat back on his heels. "He's dead."

Sutton stopped yelling for a moment then shoved Jesse in the chest, nearly knocking him to the street. "Despite my misgiving," he shouted. "It appears we have a winner."

The crowd burst into cheers, flooding out into street to wash around Jesse and to carry him into the saloon. Jesse looked baffled and a bit nauseated, but he accepted the congratulations given to him and didn't try to stop the crowd from pushing him where they wanted him to go.

Will stayed a bit longer to see what Sutton did next, but all the man did was stand up, put his hand on Jacob's shoulder in that proprietary way that made Will want to take the hand off at the wrist, and started toward Herrod's. One of the Pinkertons stayed behind to fold up the chair and stool, but the rest continued on with Sutton. Curious, Will watched as the remaining Pinkerton put the chair and stool into the door right behind where Sutton had been sitting most of the day. That door led into the telegraph office, which Mrs. Potter had said had been closed since Sutton came to town.

A quick glance at the number of people milling in the street and wandering up and down the boardwalk forced Will to turn back inside and follow Sutton's entourage into Herrod's. 

After the loss of half the gunmen in town, it wasn't surprising that Herrod's was emptier than the morning crowd. Most notable was the poker table that had been occupied every other time Will had been at the bar; now it sat silent and abandoned. 

The surviving men made up for their diminished numbers by being extra loud, and Will was barely into his second drink when he started to get a headache from all of the noise. He was considering going to the stable to wait for Jesse when Roberta sidled through the room in a rather focused way that put her next to Will's table. "I enjoyed our time together," she said in a sultry tone, her hand sliding down his arm from his shoulder.

Will, who had started to wonder if he'd missed an important cue, relaxed as he felt a square of paper being pushed into his hand. "I enjoyed it too," he said, honestly enough. "We should do it again."

"How about now?" Roberta murmured. She immediately mouthed the word _no_.

Will quaffed the rest of his drink, using the motion to cover the fact that he was running his eyes over the rest of the crowd. Sure enough, he saw one of Sutton's men staring at him. "Thanks for the offer, ma'am, but I've got a bit of a ride in front of me and my head's aching. Maybe tomorrow?"

"I'll look forward to it," Roberta said. "Don't worry about your friend; I'll let him know where you've gone."

"Much obliged." Will slipped the note-containing hand under the table to slide the paper in his pocket while he used his other hand to put on his hat. Carefully not looking at anyone else in the saloon, he walked out the swinging doors and headed for the stable.

He didn't get very far when he heard a voice behind him call out, "Hey, you!"

Will thought about continuing on his way, but the Pinkertons were armed for bear and he had a feeling they weren't terribly patient, so he turned around. "Yeah?"

The Pinkerton, the same one who had been looking at Will in the saloon, strode up. "It's funny. For a man who's only in town to visit the ranch, you seem to be spending a lot of time in town and not very much time on the ranch."

It occurred to Will that, despite their union-breaking reputation, the Pinkerton Agency advertised as private detectives. They probably should have given that fact more thought when they were planning. He forced a casual shrug as he answered, "With Jesse in town, the only person at the ranch is Mrs. Potter. The tournament sounded more interesting than a school marm." When the Pinkerton didn't lose the suspicious look, Will added, "Though the ranch does need some work and I've gotten my fill of gunfights for a while. Most of them weren't as exciting as I'd hoped, so I wasn't planning on coming back till the last day or two of the tournament. Those should be the fights worth seeing."

The Pinkerton continued to stare menacingly, but Will's mental numbness served him well and he was able to placidly stare right back. "I wouldn't expect your friend back tonight," the Pinkerton finally said. "In fact, I wouldn't expect him back till the end of the tournament. Sheriff Sutton doesn't want anyone to get cold feet."

In his mind, Will started swearing up a blue streak. He forced himself to offer up a bland smile, though, when he answered, "I'll let Mrs. Potter know she can cut back on the cooking. Jesse eats like a horse. Anything else I can do for you, or can I head back to the ranch?"

"Nothing else," the Pinkerton said. "For now."

Will touched the brim of his hat and continued on the way to the barn. He had to fight not to start running, because he had a terrible suspicion that Sutton's men were going to be raiding the ranch. It wasn't likely they were coming immediately, not while the celebrating was in full swing, but come they would, if only in retaliation for Jesse's performance that day. And Will, in his infinite foolishness, just told them that there were only two people at the ranch. If they caught sight of Katie now, there was no way Will would be able to prevent them from taking her. Will saddled Clarence in record time and ended up leaving a coin on the stable door since there was no one around to pay.

He was halfway to the ranch when he remembered the note. Pulling Clarence back down to a trot, Will pulled the note out of his pocket and read:

_Tomorrow, 9:00 a.m., the cave with the cow bones._

The handwriting was feminine, probably Roberta's, but the message itself was clearly from John. Will swore under his breath. A day ago, he would have been thrilled at the prospect of some private time with John. Now all he could do was imagine the Pinkertons making some sort of connection between Will and John, putting the ranch at even greater risk. Shoving the paper back in his pocket, he kicked Clarence back into a gallop.

Mrs. Potter was on the porch when Will rode up. She was ostensibly sweeping the porch clean, but Will didn't miss the shotgun leaning against the railing, nor the way Mrs. Potter's shoulders visibly relaxed the moment he was close enough to make out clearly.

"Where's Katie and Anne?" he asked as he slid off of Clarence's back. Clarence was blowing hard, but his ears were up and his eyes were alert so for the moment Will just tied the reins to the porch and made a mental promise to serve up some oats for dinner.

"In the cellar and on the roof," Mrs. Potter said, busily sweeping the dust right back over the porch. "Where's Jesse?"

"In town." Will sighed. "I think Sutton's getting suspicious. One of his men told me that Jesse was going to be staying in town for the rest of the tournament. He also told me that he thought it was strange that I was spending so little time at the ranch."

Mrs. Potter tensed. "Do you think they're coming out here?"

"Yeah, I think they will. You and Katie should probably spend the night in the mess hall, just in case."

Mrs. Potter's lips pursed, but she nodded. "I'll let Katie know."

"Maybe put a blanket down there in the cellar," Will suggested. "Just in case."

"Already done, Mr. Connors. Already done."

~~~

The evening was a quiet one. Will spent much of it in the barn, lingering over Clarence's care and generally tidying the place. Katie joined him for part of it, but as the time passed and Will grew more tense, he finally told her to go inside with Mrs. Potter. It took a few tries but eventually she went.

Apparently, Anne and Mrs. Potter had come to some sort of agreement because rather than join the others for dinner, she took her plate of food and went outside. Will couldn't help but notice that this time Anne took a serving of the meat.

Dinner between the rest of them was nearly silent, though Will made an effort when he saw just how nervous they were making Katie. The conversation was a wounded, dying thing, however, and everyone seemed grateful to call it an early night.

As Will settled into his empty bed, he stared up at the ceiling and wondered what the hell they were going to do next.


	15. Chapter 15

They came in the night.

It was almost a relief for Will; he'd been tossing and turning for hours, his imagination building up the impending confrontation until he imagined the entire town stampeding through the ranch, destroying everything that he'd spent his life building up.

By the time he reached the mess hall with loaded shotgun in hand, Mrs. Potter was already standing just inside the door, scooping shells into her apron pockets. "Katie's in the cellar," she said grimly. "Anne's back on the roof. How many are coming?"

"More than one. Less than ten, I hope." Will looked around the kitchen for a moment before opening the window next to the door and blowing out the lantern. "Stay in here. With any luck, they'll think you're still asleep."

"And what exactly do you plan to do?" Mrs. Potter asked sharply.

"Talk them down, if I can." 

Will stepped outside, his heart pumping away in his chest. The riders were closer now, and from the sound of it, Will thought there was probably only two or three of them. With his and Mrs. Potter's shotgun, not to mention the complete element of surprise of Anne's rifle, Will was reasonably confident that they could kill two or three men. The problem lay in what would happen next: if two or three of Sutton's men disappeared tonight, he would undoubtedly send more tomorrow.

Honestly, by this point Will didn't really care about the fate of the ranch. Worst came to worst, he and the womenfolk could hide out in one of the caves while Sutton vented his anger on the buildings and livestock. Afterward, Will would be more than happy to offer Mrs. Potter the same deal he and John had offered Roberta, Suzie and Anne. Mrs. Potter had never been out of Dead Horse before; Will thought she might like to see Boston.

Unfortunately, there were other considerations. Even if Jesse and John got away, Sutton was a cancer on the town of Dead Horse. If Will and John and the rest of them left without taking care of Sutton, they might as well pull the trigger on the townsfolk themselves. For some, like little Jacob, it would be a mercy.

In the distance, Will could see two torches appear as the riders rounded the hill just south of the ranch. His hand grew damp with sweat, making the handle of the shotgun slick and a little slimy. He should have spent more time practicing with it, he thought as he shifted his hold on the unfamiliar, awkward grip.

Forcing his mind off the shotgun, Will deliberately slowed his breathing down to a normal rate and schooled his expression into what he hoped was a convincing mask of casual indifference. For a second he even tried leaning back against the cabin, but he felt ridiculous doing so and instead moved up until he could rest his free hand on the porch railing.

By the time the riders reached the ranch house Will was so tense his leg was starting to cramp, but he managed to muster a reasonable attempt at a smile. "Anything I can do for you boys?" he called, his eyes running over the intruders and picking up the Pinkerton badges on their lapels and the way each man kept one hand on his gun. "Kinda late for visiting."

"There's been some reports of outlaws in the area," the closer man said. He was larger and had brown hair, while the smaller guy had blond. "We're checking the ranches to make sure no one's being hassled."

Either the man had a sense of humor or no sense of irony at all. "Haven't seen anyone here who shouldn't be here."

"Mind if we look around?"

"Sure thing," Will answered, his mind racing over what they might find during that search. One too many horses in the barn, for one thing, but maybe Will could explain that away as a gift to Mrs. Potter. Katie's horse would, of course, be designated as his pack horse. Katie's clothes would be harder to explain, but he trusted Mrs. Potter to have hidden those in the cellar with Katie. Even if she didn't, they could probably be explained as clothing left behind by former students or clothes she kept on hand in case her grandkids visited. Hopefully they could use the same explanation for Anne's clothes: Will had never before been grateful for the thought of a woman wearing trousers, but he was happy he wouldn't be forced to explain away some frilly satin frock like the kind Roberta wore.

While Will was doing his best to cover his thoughts, Sutton's men had wasted no time in searching the cabins. Will gritted his teeth as they kicked the door in on his own cabin, but he knew there was nothing in there for them to find. He was more anxious when they got to Anne's cabin, but they weren't even there long enough to have opened a saddlebag, much less inspected its contents. Presumably, Anne's belongings were up on the roof with Anne.

Mrs. Potter's cabin caused a bit of trouble. "Where's the old woman?" the black-haired Pinkerton demanded as he came storming out.

"Probably asleep in the mess hall," Will said, gesturing at the door behind him. He opened his mouth to add more, but couldn't come up with any good reason for Mrs. Potter to be sleeping in the mess hall rather than her cabin and closed his mouth again with a weak smile.

The ranch door opened and Mrs. Potter stepped out, rubbing her eyes. "What's all this racket?" she asked, sounding more crotchety than Will had ever heard before. Her hair was in disarray and her dress was twisted around her torso and if Will didn't know better, he'd think she'd just woken up.

The Pinkertons visibly relaxed. "Sorry, ma'am," the blond one said. "We're just checking for outlaws."

Mrs. Potter snorted. "Not likely to find any here, son. Nothing for them to take."

The blond Pinkerton narrowed his eyes. "Why were you sleeping in the mess hall? If you don't mind my asking."

"Waiting," Mrs. Potter said flatly.

"Waiting?"

"For the raccoon that's been getting into the pantry. Can't figure out how he's getting in, so I've been trying to catch him in the act."

Will bit down hard on his inner cheek to keep from smiling and wondered if Mrs. Potter would let him get away with kissing her when this was all over.

"Is there anything else?" Mrs. Potter added. "Not that many hours of sleep left in the night."

"Actually, there is one more thing," the black-haired man said. "Mr. Sutton would like you to give a cow to the town. For the celebration feast at the end of the tournament."

Will wondered if Sutton really had requested any such thing or if the Pinkerton was pushing for some sort of reaction. Five years ago when this ranch was all Will had, he would undoubtedly have had exactly the reaction this bastard was looking for, but all things considered it was easy for him to answer with casual ease: "Of course. Do you want us to pick one for you, or will you send someone out to collect it?"

The Pinkerton's eyes narrowed. "We'll send someone out to get it on Thursday." Abruptly he added, "I see you have a few horses in the stable."

"They're all mine," Will said quickly. "Well, two of them are mine. The third was a gift for Mrs. Potter. For doing such a good job with the school."

"A school with no students," the Pinkerton pointed out.

"I understand that's a recent change," Will said. He had to fight to keep from gritting his teeth.

For a few moments longer Will and the Pinkerton stared at each other. Finally the Pinkerton nodded sharply. "If you see anyone around who shouldn't be here, you give us a holler."

"Will do," Will said, gripping the shotgun with everything he had to keep from letting himself slump in relief. 

Will and Mrs. Potter stood next to each other on the porch, watching silently as riders rode off into the night. "Now what?" she asked once the torches were finally out of sight.

"I'm not sure," Will admitted. "I think we're safe for tomorrow, but after that ... I'll talk to John about it, see what he's heard about town." Will carefully put down his shotgun, flexing his aching fingers. "There's a good chance we're going to have to leave the ranch," he added quietly. "If that happens, I don't want you to worry. John and I aren't going to abandon you, or Jesse."

Mrs. Potter planted her fists on her hips. "I'm not worried about me, Mr. Connors, I'm worried about the boys. Over the last few years, I've seen many troubled boys turn into good men. Even the ones who still had some growing to do learned skills that'll make life easier for them and anyone they end up living with. Most of them had nowhere to go before they ended up here and no skills to their name, and without this ranch they would have been wandering around, stealing for their bread and causing trouble out of boredom. All of them probably would have died young."

And penniless and alone, probably, but Will saw no benefit to saying so out loud. "There is no ranch without you," he said instead. "We can rebuild buildings, we can buy more cattle. We can't buy another Mrs. Potter."

Mrs. Potter was silent for a long moment, so long that Will thought he'd said something wrong. Then she ducked her head and the moonlight made her hair look like a silver halo. "Very kind of you to say so, Will," she said thickly.

"It's nothing but the truth. Now come on inside. We might as well get some sleep while we can. The morning is soon enough for any decisions that need to be made."

She sniffed quietly, twice, then lifted her head again. "Then I wish you a very good night, Will."

"Sleep well, Mrs. Potter." Will glanced up at the roof, part of him wondering if Anne was up there at all. If she was, she was doing an astonishing job of staying silent. "You, too, Anne," he called, just in case. "It's going to be a long day, tomorrow. Time to get some rest."

A light rapping noise that might have been knuckles hitting the roof was Will's only reply. Will sighed and turned toward his cabin and his empty bunk. The hours between now and nine a.m. stretched out before him like the vast plains of Kansas and he knew there wouldn't be any sleep for him that night.


	16. Chapter 16

Breakfast the next morning was even quieter than dinner had been the night before. Anne once again took her plate off elsewhere, Katie was quiet after a night in the cellar and tended towards being clingy, and Mrs. Potter had dark circles under her eyes that Will was sure rivaled his own. "I'm going to be leaving for a bit this morning," Will said, mostly for Anne and Katie's benefit since he and Mrs. Potter had already discussed the meeting with John last night. "You might want to spend the time going through the place and deciding what you can't live without and what you don't want to live without."

"The former should be no more than we can fit in our saddlebags, I imagine," Mrs. Potter said. "The rest in the cellar?"

"No," Will said. "Too much risk of it being found in a thorough search." Or of it being destroyed if the house got burnt to the ground. "There's a cave east of here that's not easy to find if you don't know it's there; we'll bring what we can over there this afternoon."

"And how long will you be gone?"

A chance to be alone with John? Will wanted to say 'all day'. "Tournament starts back up at noon. I'll be back here before then."

Mrs. Potter nodded briskly and sent Katie out for some water to do the dishes. Will was grateful as it meant he didn't have to fend off a tiny shadow as he went to the cabin to get his bedroll. The last thing he needed was Katie finally finding her voice to ask Will why he needed a bedroll to visit John. Or, God forbid, asking _Mrs. Potter_ the same question.

Anxious and jittery with exhaustion, Will arrived at the cave well before the appointed time. He settled in for a long wait, but it couldn't've been more than a few minutes before he heard a horse riding in.

Will made his way to the front of the cave, where Clarence was tied off to a convenient shrub. Clarence had been nibbling on the leaves, but as Will came out, he whickered and pulled his head. Will reached out to pat his nose as Butterscotch came around the corner. "John," he breathed.

John didn't say anything at all, just slid off of Butterscotch's back and strode forward to engulf Will in a hard embrace. Will held him back just as tight and when John leaned back for a kiss, Will gave as good as he got there as well.

They didn't make it back to the bedroll. They didn't even manage to get undressed, just rutted hard against each other with the wall of the cave for support, devouring each others' mouths the entire time.

Once their immediate needs were sated, John went back to take care of Butterscotch. She apparently liked Clarence more than either one of them realized, because she was still standing next to the shrub, nosing at Clarence's neck. Clarence huffed at her and went back to desultorily eating the shrub.

Inside the cave, they moved the bedroll next to the straightest wall and sat down next to each other so close that they were touching along one whole side. "How're things in town?" Will asked quietly.

"Quiet. Lotta drinking going on last night, especially among Sutton's men." John reached over and took Will's hand, holding it between both of his own. "I think we were wrong about Sutton's reasons for throwing the tournament. This isn't a chance for his men to blow off steam, or to recruit new talent. If that were the case, most of the people signed up would be out-of-towners, with just a handful of Sutton's most expendable men."

Thinking back to what he'd heard yesterday, Will said thoughtfully, "All of Sutton's men are signed up, aren't they?"

"Looks like. And I'm pretty sure that a few of the others, maybe a couple of the John Andersons, are in Sutton's pocket, too."

"He's cleaning house," Will realized. "Killing off all of his men. But why?"

"I think he wants to stay," John said. "This day and age, with the telegraph and the trains, it's gotta be harder to take over a town, even a small and isolated one. He couldn't keep doing it forever. Here he's got his fancy house with the large ranch attached, he's got a boy no one's going to try to take away, he's got enough people and businesses that the town's not going to be going under but not so many that he can't control the law. It's the perfect town."

Will frowned. "That doesn't explain why he needs to kill off his own men."

"Because he's practical. He's carved out what he wants out of the town; now he has to protect the rest so that his little slice of paradise stays nice."

"And a bunch of thugs who are used to taking what they want, as often as they want, will get in the way of that."

"Exactly. He needed all of those men to take over the town. Now, though, it's mostly subdued –"

"And anyone still up for a fight probably signed up for the tournament," Will added bitterly.

"– and those men are now like locusts on the town. If they're not stopped, they'll eat and drink and whore until there's nothing left of the town worth having."

"That's why he has the Pinkertons with him," Will realized. "He must be planning on using them to keep control of the place."

"Cost more than his thugs, but are better behaved. And since he controls the telegraph office, he has the ability to report to their superiors. If necessary, he can have them send a new batch to put the current one down."

Will shook his head. "Seems like a lot of work when he could just've come into town and bought a place."

"Maybe he didn't know he wanted to stay till after he'd already taken the town over," John suggested. "Or maybe –" he shrugged. "When a good man comes up against a dilemma, his first thought isn't to turn to crime. When a man like Sutton makes a plan, his only thought is of crime."

Will remembered Mrs. Potter talking about the skills the boys had been learning at the ranch. "You work with the skills you have."

"Exactly."

They sat there silently for a moment before John sighed. "You know Sutton knows who you are."

"Yeah," Will said wearily. "They raided the ranch last night." John went rigid, so Will quickly added, "It's okay, no one was hurt. Anne and Katie were both hidden away and Mrs. Potter and I managed to talk Sutton's men into leaving. But they are coming back." Will knocked his head back against the wall of the cave. "I just wish I knew where I'd slipped up. All that effort trying to keep my head down and Sutton saw right through me."

"It's the town."

Will sat up. "What?"

John shrugged, a small smile on his face. "You have no idea, do you? Will, you're Dead Horse's favorite son, the small-time rancher who went on to be a big-time author. Everyone in this town knows who you are. Everyone in town has all of your books. They're proud of you, Will. I doubt you'd been in town ten minutes before someone with the best of intentions told Sutton who you were. I've had at least dozen different people come up to tell me that the man who wrote the John Anderson novels came from this town. Most of them asked if you'd ever interviewed me."

Will considered that. "Well, fuck."

"Who would've guessed that out of the two of us, it'd be your notoriety that would cause us problems?"

Will glared at John, who wasn't doing much to hide his mirth. "You think this is funny?"

"I think we need to take our humor where we can get it during times like these." John sobered. "I know it's harder for you. You've never been in a situation like this before."

Will didn't say so out loud, but even more painful than being in this situation was the knowledge that John had experienced such things so many times that he could find levity in them when Will could only see death. "So now what do we do? Can you even win this tournament? Would it be enough?"

John was already shaking his head. "It doesn't matter if I win; everyone I'm fighting is just cannon fodder. The real worry is the Pinkertons."

"Four men?" Will asked incredulously.

"Six; he keeps a couple more at the ranch. But Roberta's seen him going into the telegraph office several times now."

Will groaned, feeling painfully weary. "He called for reinforcements." 

"I suspect so."

"That's it, then? He's beaten us?"

"It goes against everything in my nature to say this," John said with a sigh. "But I think it's time to call in the law."

"Break into the telegraph office?" Will guessed. It probably wouldn't be too difficult, though Sutton would be a fool if he didn't have a man watching it...

John was already shaking his head. "Don't want to risk tipping our hand. If Sutton knows they're coming, who knows what he might do."

"Then I'll ride to River Bend. I head out now, I can get there before dark."

John shook his head again. "You should wait for tomorrow. You leave now, you won't be able to make it back before nightfall. If Sutton's men hit the ranch early, there won't be anything to stop them."

"There'll be Anne," Will said. "And Mrs. Potter."

"We can't risk them finding out about Anne too early and Mrs. Potter won't be able to fight off Sutton's men by herself."

"And you think I can?"

"They're not going to attack while you're there," John said. "No one cares if a few ranchers die out in the middle of nowhere. A nationally famous author, though – if you get killed, people are going to want to know what happened. Sutton can't risk that kind of scrutiny."

"Sometimes I forget," Will admitted. "No one in Boston seems to care who I am."

"Must be those high-falutin' literary circles you hang around in. Wouldn't know a good adventure if one bit them on the ass."

Will shook his head, smiling despite himself. Under the circumstances, however, he couldn't maintain the expression. "Can we meet tomorrow?"

John sobered quickly. "Can't take the risk. Shouldn't have met today, except that Sutton drove you out yesterday before we could compare notes." 

Will expected John to follow that statement up with a note of the time; they'd been sitting there talking long enough for the shadows in the cave to have shifted with the rising sun. John stayed silent, though, and Will smiled sadly. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Anything," Will said, leaning over to rest his head on John's shoulder. As John shrugged and launched into an enthusiastic monologue about the Man in White's amazing self-cocking pistol and the boxy slide that covered the barrel and somehow made the thing work, Will closed his eyes. Silently he breathed in John's smell, savoring scents he'd never thought to focus on before. Eyes still shut, he let his ears slowly sharpen, paying attention to the timber of John's voice, the way it moved faster when he was talking about new-fangled inventions. He let his free hand drift out till it was resting on John's knee, and he soaked in that tiny patch of warmth as he memorized John's smells and sounds. Just in case. 


	17. Chapter 17

Will lingered in the cave for a long stretch after John left, refusing to acknowledge that he was grieving but still unable to bear the thought of interacting with other people. By the time he made his way back to the ranch house, it was after lunchtime.

As with most afternoons, Mrs. Potter had Katie sitting down at the table, an open reading primer sitting in front of her. This time it was a newer book, one of the primers Mrs. Potter had sent away for when a younger-than-planned-for boy had been dropped off at the ranch by a cavalry man who claimed the boy was the only survivor of an Indian attack. Apparently Mrs. Potter wasn't convinced by the argument, but she'd decided and Will agreed that it was better to take in a boy with living parents than to leave him with parents who so clearly didn't want him.

Teaching a child to read was always a difficult task. When the child in question refused to speak, it made the task next to impossible. Frankly, Will was glad Mrs. Potter had taken over the job; she wasn't as inclined to let Katie out early. 

Today, however, he found himself increasingly antsy as he sat at the table; the same table that he himself had made when he and Molly had first moved out west. The same table where he had taught Tommy to read. The same table where he and John had spent long evenings together, quietly working on their separate tasks.

"Why don't we head out to the barn?" Will suggested abruptly. "You can practice reading to the horses."

Katie looked to Mrs. Potter, who crossed her arms and looked stern. "You still have a half an hour left to go, young lady. Don't you try to convince Mr. Connors into letting you quit early."

With an expression of angelic innocence and the utmost solemnity, Katie shook her head. Will covered his twitching lips with his hand, already feeling immensely better.

Halfway to the barn, Will put a gentle hand on Katie's shoulder, stopping her skipping. "Just want to take a look at your burn."

She sighed audibly, but didn't fight as Will tilted her chin to the side so that the sunlight could fall over her wound. With everything else going on, he hadn't been keeping as close an eye on the burn as he had before, but it was healing nicely without any sign of infection. She'd have a nasty scar, but much of it would be hidden by her hair, and Will was pretty sure that a carefully positioned bonnet could hide what the hair couldn't. "How does it feel?" Will asked. "Does it hurt at all?"

Just like every other time he'd asked that question, Katie shook her head. Will sighed and patted her shoulder to get her walking again. The lack of pain was reassuring, but also a little worrying. A tiny burn from touching a hot stove was painful for days. How could a burn that was so much worse be entirely painless?

Lacking an answer, Will forced himself to let the question go. The one that replaced it wasn't any more comforting, however. How would Katie ever find a husband with that disfigurement? Not that he thought there would be a lack of suitors; his and John's money would see to that. But Will had married for love, and the thought of Katie having to settle for less was painful.

Clearly this was a day for dark thoughts, Will thought as he and Katie entered the barn. Not surprising, with John likely facing down a barrel of a gun at that moment, but also not very helpful, so Will did his best to clear his mind while he hauled over a bale of hay. The physical effort helped; hay seemed to have gotten a lot heavier in the four years since he'd left the ranch.

"Okay," he said, settling down on the bale, being sure to leave enough room for Katie. "Since it's just the two of us, I thought we could try reading out loud."

Katie immediately held out the book.

"Actually, I was thinking you could read out loud to me. And Pony."

Katie's horse, hearing the name they'd been using while waiting for her to pick a real name, put his nose over the door and grumbled at them. Will wasn't sure they were going to have much luck with renaming the beast; he seemed like the type to emulate Butterscotch on such matters.

Katie, in a stubbornness league all of her own, was scowling furiously. Recognizing a tantrum in the making, Will amended, "Or maybe I could read to the both of you and you can help me. How does that sound?"

Demonstrating a far greater understanding of compromise than Tommy had ever possessed, Katie nodded and for the next half hour they read out loud together. By the time they were done, Will was quite impressed: though Katie's voice was so soft that he had to strain to hear her, she never stumbled over a single word, not even when he pointed to the longer words. Tommy had taken months to get this far, and he'd had the advantage of being able to sound out the words he didn't know. Then again, Tommy had been much younger when they'd first started him on reading.

When they finished the primer, Will set it aside with a sigh. "You were there when I first introduced everyone to John, right?"

Katie nodded cautiously.

"Do you remember what I called him?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. She wouldn't meet his eyes, thought, which Will found suspicious. "Charles," he said. "Merriweather."

Katie opened her mouth, then snuck a glance at him and closed it again. Will narrowed his eyes. "The _third_."

Katie giggled.

Will shook his head, but didn't bother trying to stop his lips from curving into a smile. He put his hand on the crown of her head and shook it very gently. "You're pretty smart, aren't you?"

Katie's smile slipped away and she shook her head, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

Will sighed and let his hand slide down from her head to rest on the point of her shoulder. Gently he tugged until she curled in at his side. "You don't like anyone knowing how smart you are," he said. It was obviously true, but Katie's head didn't move. In fact, her whole body was stiff.

As a writer, Will had been fascinated when he heard that the latest census would include literacy information, and he'd eagerly awaited the publishing of the results. Rather surprisingly, in his eyes, the highest literacy rates were in the middle of the country, in the north. Less surprisingly was that the lowest literacy rates were in the south, stretching all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to the border of California. He'd seen the evidence of that when he'd first moved out west; nearly everyone in Philadelphia could read, while a full quarter of the population of Dead Horse had been illiterate. Judging from the census data, the situation was even worse in the more rural areas.

That might help to solve the question of where Katie had come from. Certainly it wasn't Kansas, where they'd found her. Even if the wagon hadn't been a clear sign that they were heading west, Kansas had the third highest literacy rate in the country. She didn't sound like she was from the South, though; there was a very distinctive drawl to a Southern accent and, besides, there were Western trails that went through the southern states. Coming all the way north to Kansas before heading west would have lengthened their trip considerably. 

Taking the literacy rates of the north east into account, and dismissing Rhode Island and Delaware as being less likely for their tiny size, Will guessed: "You're from Maryland, aren't you?"

Katie's head snapped up and she stared at him in open astonishment.

He grinned down at her, feeling ridiculously pleased. "I'm from just across the border, in Philadelphia. I had an aunt in Baltimore and we visited her a couple of times. I always thought Maryland was a very pretty state."

As he talked Katie's tension lessened until she was leaning comfortably against his side. Will rubbed her shoulder. "Do you have any relatives in Maryland?"

After another damning hesitation, Katie shook he head again. Will considered how thin she'd been when they'd first found her and the way she seemed to think that being intelligent was something shameful. "We won't give you to your relatives, not if you don't want us to."

Katie slumped in obvious relief.

"But we do need to know who they are," Will added. "Just in case something happens to us." Like John getting shot. Or Will finding out the hard way that Sutton had men stationed between Dead Horse and River Bend to ensure that no one got through. John had managed to take the overland route between the two towns, but he was a much better rider than Will and Butterscotch, when she felt like behaving, was a much better horse than Clarence. Will might be able to stay off of the road in some places, but there was no way he'd be able to avoid it entirely, especially not when it came to the tiny ridge of mountains that divided their two valleys.

All of which he'd worry about tomorrow. For now, he focused his attention on Katie, who'd gone stiff again. But no matter how much he wheedled, or demanded, or pleaded, she refused to give him any information about her other relations. By the time he gave up, Will was starting to wonder if there wasn't more to this than just the relatives' presumed poverty. Surely if her relatives were good people she'd at least want to visit.

Thus it was a worried Will and a watery-eyed little girl that made their way back to the mess hall, only to find that the cabin was piled high with what appeared to be everything of value on the entire ranch. "Mrs. Potter?" Will asked warily. "What's going on?"

"Packing," she said briskly as she folded a blanket. "Before those men come back."

Will opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then he asked hesitantly, "Don't you think this is a bit much?"

She propped her fists on her hips, looking offended. "Of course not. There's not much we can do to protect the buildings, but at least we can take everything we can carry and hide it in the caves. It'll be easier to rebuild if we aren't starting entirely from scratch."

Will could hardly argue with that logic. Even if he could, however, he wouldn't: work was infinitely preferable to waiting. "I'll go saddle up the horses if you want to get the first load ready to go."

~~~

For most of the trips Will and Anne did the hauling, but later on in the afternoon Mrs. Potter said that she needed to get out of the cabin and declared that she was going to take the next trip. Will didn't think anything of it until they were halfway to the cave and Mrs. Potter cleared her throat. Will stiffened, some instinct inside him telling him that he wasn't going to like what she said next.

"Mr. Connors – Will. I have a question, about you and Mr. Anderson."

"Yes?" Will asked warily.

"You two are ... intimate, aren't you? Physically intimate?"

Will froze for several long moments until Clarence abruptly danced a step to the side. Will didn't know why until he looked down to see that his hands were clenched into fists, pulling reins back just a little too tight. With an effort, he relaxed his fingers. "Why do you say that?" he asked, with what he considered an admirable level of calm.

"I grew up out west," Mrs. Potter said, instead of answering the question, and that just made Will even more wary. "My daddy's ranch was about a hundred miles west of here, near the great canyon."

"I didn't know that," Will said cautiously.

"Lived there till I was sixteen," Mrs. Potter said. "That's when Randolph came by selling kitchen wares out of the back of his wagon. He was handsome and charming and well-traveled and I loved him the moment I first saw him."

Will tried to picture old Mr. Potter as a handsome and charming young man. It wasn't easy, as the gentleman in question had been corpulent and prone to gout and he'd died soon after Will and Molly had first moved out west. "I imagine your father wasn't too happy about that," he finally said.

"I was the sixth of eight girls," Mrs. Potter said wryly. "Daddy practically begged Randolph to take me off his hands. Even gave him some money to open the store in Dead Horse. But that's beside the point."

Will, who'd been hoping she'd forgotten her point, winced.

"Daddy's ranch was one of the largest in the area and we had nearly two dozen ranch hands. We were too far from town to ride in every weekend, so once or twice a month the hands would put together a dance as a way to pass the time. Daddy liked the idea of the dances – he said it was good clean fun, better than drinking or gambling – and he let all us girls join in. Still, there wasn't near enough of us for all of the men, so the cowboys would draw lots to see who would wear the molly-strips."

"The molly-strips?"

"It's a strip of cloth that is tied around a man's upper arm. While he's wearing it, he plays the woman's part in the dance."

Will blinked. He'd heard about such practices, but had never actually seen a dance where men danced with men. "And no one ever thought the less of them?"

"Of course not," Mrs. Potter said. "Everyone wore the strip at some point in time or another."

"Ah," Will said, now completely at a loss as to what this had to do with him and John.

"But there were a couple of hands who always wore the strip. At first they'd trade for it, but eventually the number of lots were reduced and those cowboys were just given a strip at the start."

"Ah," Will said again, this time in comprehension. "And did anyone have a problem with those two hands?"

"Some did," Mrs. Potter admitted. "And Daddy never invited them into the house for dinner, like he did some of the other ranch hands. But whenever my sisters or I had to go into town, those were the men he sent with us. I got to know them fairly well, especially Mr. Travis. He was always sweet to me. But never sweet on me, not even when I was fifteen and practically throwing myself at him."

Will considered that, then sighed. "I don't think I'm like your Mr. Travis. I loved Molly with everything in me. I still do, honestly; I can't imagine being able to love another woman."

"But other men?" Mrs. Potter asked delicately.

Will shook his head. "It's not the same. I could be intimate with another woman, but John's the only man who I can imagine being that way with. If I hadn't been so broken up over Molly's death, I don't know that I could have managed it with John. I'm still not entirely sure how it happened. So many of those years after Molly died were such a blur."

"I remember," Mrs. Potter said. "For a while there, we all weren't sure you were going to survive."

"I probably wouldn't have," Will admitted. "By the time John showed up, I'd stopped caring about everything but Tommy, and even he was starting to slip away. Too many miles between us, too many years since I'd last seen him in person. I'd just about managed to convince myself that Tommy wouldn't even notice if I followed Molly to the great beyond."

"Will," Mrs. Potter said chidingly.

"I wasn't in my right mind. Made it easier for me to do things I never would have considered before."

"And now?"

"Now I'm grateful," Will said, feeling surprisingly shy, considering the conversation they'd had so far. "I never would have let John close if I'd been in my right mind and the thought of missing what I have now is painful."

Mrs. Potter stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded sharply. "I thought it might be something like that. I am glad you're happy, Will. You deserve some happiness in your life."

Will smiled, feeling his face heat. "Thanks, Mrs. Potter. That means a lot."

"I'm sure it'll mean more if we all survive the week," she added. "Come on, we're wasting daylight."

With that she kicked Katie's packhorse into a canter. Will shook his head fondly, and followed.


	18. Chapter 18

No one got much sleep that night, but at least there were no visits from Sutton's men. The moment the sky began to lighten, Will gave up on his fruitless attempts to sleep and went out to the barn.

He was just leading Clarence out into the yard when Mrs. Potter emerged from the mess hall, a cloth bundle in her hand. "Food for your trip."

Will felt a warm rush in his chest. "You didn't have to do that."

"You can't ride all day without a bite to eat," she said pragmatically. "Besides, I couldn't sleep. A certain devil child kept me awake all night."

Will winced. "She still up?"

"Finally dropped off an hour ago." She considered him. "How dangerous is this trip, Will?"

"I don't know," Will admitted. "How many townsfolk have made it to River Bend and back since Sutton got here?"

"Other than the supply deliveries? None."

Damn. There went his hope that Sutton didn't have men watching the road. Nothing to be done for it now, however, so Will just mounted his horse and then leaned down to accept the bundle from Mrs. Potter. "Listen, Mrs. Potter – if anything happens to John and I – well, we've both left our shares of the ranch to you. Our lawyer in Boston is Daniel Abernathy; he'll be able to get everything you need to transfer the ranch to your name."

She stared at him. "Oh, Mr. Connors –"

"Just promise me you'll take care of Katie. Her whole family died not too long ago. If John and I both die, too, she'll be in bad shape."

"Of course I'll take care of her, but nothing's going to happen to you." From her tone, an unspoken _I forbid it_ was attached at the end.

Despite everything, Will smiled. "Yes ma'am." He dipped his hat to her and kicked Clarence into a gallop. He didn't look back.

~~~

For the first couple of hours Will rode hard, only stopping once to water Clarence. As he made his way into the Rockies, however, the road grew increasingly steep and he had to slow down. Clarence was doing far better than Brownie had the last time Will had tried to make this trip, but it would be foolish to risk anything faster than a trot on these mountain trails.

Two-thirds of the way to River Bend, the trail reached its highest point at a narrow pass between two towering peaks. Will had been thinking about that pass ever since he'd set out: if anyone was going to stage an ambush, that would be the most likely point. The closer he got to the pass, the more certain he was that there would be someone waiting for him.

As the trail narrowed, Will pulled Clarence back to a walk, being careful to avoid loose rock and the rare bits of dead leaves. Eventually, he slid out of the saddle and led Clarence forward on foot. Hopefully all of this caution was for naught; with any luck the pass would be completely free of any of Sutton's men and all of this sneaking about would prove to be –

_Damn_ , Will thought as he rounded the last curve before the pass and saw the campfire. Two men were sitting next to it, drinking coffee from mugs and playing cards, with rifles standing up next to them within easy arm's reach.

Will pulled his head back, putting out a completely unnecessary hand to stop Clarence, who'd already started nosing around the sagebrush and was nibbling at the silvery leaves. Will smiled despite himself and patted Clarence on the nose before carefully sliding his rifle out of his saddlebags.

The previous evening, when everyone was both anxious and bored, Anne had picked up her rifle, a bag of bullets, and a deck of cards and wandered outside. Naturally, everyone else had followed and for the hour after that Anne had entertained them all with trick shots. Will couldn't decide which impressed him more: when she'd shot all four corners off of a card from a hundred paces, or when he threw a small handful of rocks in the air and she shot them all before they could hit the ground. Either way, he'd been as entertained as Katie and Mrs. Potter and he'd been much more confident of Anne's ability to play her part on Friday. 

Will wasn't as good with a rifle as Anne, but he'd always had good eyesight and a steady hand. At Molly's insistence, he'd participated in a handful of shooting competitions and had even won one of them, when the man expected to win had been too sick to participate.

Trying to focus his mind on those instances and not on the fact that it'd been nearly four years since he'd last fired a rifle, Will balanced the barrel of his rifle onto a rock and took careful aim at the closest man's leg. He focused on his senses and the beating of his heart, hearing each breath drawn in as a high pitched whine and let out again in a husky rasp. His heart pumped steadily at the edge of his awareness, the time between beats seeming to drag out as he focused on them. Beat, pause, beat, pause, beat –

– he fired the rifle –

–beat. The man was now clutching his leg and screaming and Will shifted his rifle to the other man, who had snatched up his own gun and was ducked down behind a rock. 

Will tried to aim again, but it was hard to hear his heart beating over the sound of the man screaming. His rifle was slick with sweat now, contrasting with the papery dryness of this throat, and he had to keep blinking to wash away drops of stinging salt that kept falling into his eyes.

A gunshot echoed through the canyon and a chip of rock suddenly flew off of the small cliff next to him. A second later he felt something hot and wet trickling down the edge of his jaw.

Will swore and jerked back to the full shelter of the canyon wall. "Damn it," he swore, swiping at the blood on his face with the cuff of his jacket. "Damn it, damn it, _damn it._ "

He took a deep breath and peeked out from behind the cliff again. The man he'd shot in the leg was gone, though from the trail of blood Will guessed that he'd just moved around to behind the rocks that he and his friend had been sitting on. The man who'd shot at Will was nowhere in sight.

Will cursed again and looked around for inspiration. Clarence was gone and the distance to the next potential hiding place down the road was too far away for Will to get there before getting shot in the back. That left just one option, one that he'd really hoped to be able to avoid.

Between the cliff Will was currently hiding behind and the shooters was a boulder that Tommy had always loved playing around back when Will and Molly would take him to River Bend. The boulder was big enough to be used as effective cover and it had a full view of the entire mountain pass, unlike Will's present location, which only allowed him to see half of the pass, the half that didn't currently contain any gunmen.

The downside was that the boulder was a good thirty feet away from where he stood, and there was no cover between him and it. If both of his legs were strong, the distance wouldn't be too much to worry about, but with his bad leg he wasn't at all confident he could manage a run, even a run so short as thirty feet.

On the other hand, if he got shot going toward the boulder, at least he could die knowing that he'd gone down fighting. 

Closing his eyes, Will took a deep breath and let it out as slowly as possible. Then he threw himself around the cliff and started running.

He managed four steps before his bad leg gave out and he fell to the ground. At the same moment the high pitched whine of a bullet flew right above his head and Will stayed on the ground, using his elbows and the knee of his good leg to crawl the remaining distance to the boulder. He heard a couple more bullets whistling past, but they were all aimed too high to hit him and he decided the best way to increase his chances was to stay on the ground as he peeked around the side of the boulder, looking for the gunmen.

There, a flash of movement over by the wall of the cliff. It was only visible for a second, but it gave Will something to aim for. Still on the ground, he used one arm to steady the rifle and used the other to aim the rifle just over the spot where he'd seen the movement.

Several long seconds passed before a head cautiously lifted itself up directly in the line of sight of Will's rifle. He didn't give himself time to think about what he was doing, just pulled the trigger and watched the man's head snap back, a round hole in the middle of this forehead. 

For over a minute Will stayed there behind the boulder, waiting for some kind of response. When none came, he forced himself to his feet with a grunt and leaned against the back of the boulder. Another interminable minute later, he sighed and limped forward, keeping his rifle raised as he approached the gunmen's hiding place.

Only to find one man dead and the other still bleeding heavily from the wound in his leg. Will swallowed hard, but kept his rifle steady. "Throw away the gun."

The wounded man threw his pistol away without hesitation.

Will swallowed again, tasting sour bile in the back of his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the growing puddle of blood under the dead man and the coppery scent of it filled the air.

"You going to shoot me?" the wounded man asked.

He should. It certainly would be the smart thing to do, eliminating any potential risk. At the same time, the man was wounded and unarmed. What harm could he possibly cause?

Will lowered his rifle with a sigh. "You try to shoot me in the back, I'll put a bullet in your head."

The man nodded quickly, making no movement at all toward his gun.

Wearily, Will walked away, hoping that Clarence hadn't run too far off. As he walked, he had to keep swallowing the gorge that tried to rise up in his throat. The face of the man he'd killed was seared onto the backs of his eyelids and every time he blinked he was reminded of the fact that he'd killed a man.

Thankfully, Clarence had not only not run too far away, but he was apparently attached enough to Will that he came back. Will found him standing just around the bend in the road, in almost the exact same spot Will had been hiding before he'd tried for the boulder.

Praising the animal with an enthusiasm he didn't really feel, Will mounted the horse and rode hard for River Bend. He'd lost enough time.

~~~

The sun was already starting to set as Will opened the southwest gate. He was almost as exhausted as his horse, whose head was down and feet were heavy. "Just a couple more miles," he murmured to Clarence, who either understood the words or recognized the area, because his head lifted a bit and his ears perked up.

By the time they reached the barn, Will was ready to sleep for a year and he was desperately grateful that he had one more day before he was expected back in town. He'd sleep in late in the morning, then practice with his shotgun for a bit, though he still hoped he wouldn't need to use it. Sutton tended to sit pretty close to the railing when watching the fights, so even if Anne was forced to shoot from the top of one of the opposite buildings, there was a reasonable chance her angle would be good enough to see his head under the overhang that shielded the boardwalk from the sun. It would be even better if she shot from Roberta's room; Sutton would have to be sitting back against the wall to avoid a shot from there.

"Will!"

Will twisted in his saddle, his hand reaching for his rifle until he registered the voice. "Jesse?"

Jesse came running up, so fast that he nearly stumbled over his own feet as he stopped. "Will, we have a problem."


	19. Chapter 19

"– don't know what the man said, but after he talked to Sutton, Sutton came out and announced that the tournament is going to end tomorrow, with the last three fights all in a row," Jesse finished as he took a long draw of Mrs. Potter's special coffee.

Will slumped back in his seat. "This is my fault. If I had just killed that bastard at the pass –"

"Then we'd have to worry an extra day," Mrs. Potter said pragmatically. "Maybe this is for the best."

Will just shook his head and turned to Jesse. "There's no way Sutton's leaving these last few fights up to chance. Who's left to fight?"

Jesse mustered a wry grin. "Three John Andersons and me. The little guy, the kid, and John, of course."

"What about the Man in White?" Will asked. "And that fancy new pistol of his?"

"He fought the really big John. Drew a little faster, too, but the big guy didn't even seem to notice when he got shot and before the he could shoot again, big John shot him dead."

"You shouldn't go back," Mrs. Potter said. "I know those ... lady-friends of John's have been helping you, but there's only so much they can do."

Jesse looked affronted. "I'm not a terrible shot, you know."

"She's right," Will said. "What if they put you against the midget? There's no way you can aim before he shoots you."

"You don't know that! None of you know what I can do! None of you have been there the last couple of days." He took a deep breath. "Besides, even if I wanted to back out now, I couldn't. If I did, Sutton would know we were up to something."

Will opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it again. "You have a point."

"Sutton already knows we're up to something," Mrs. Potter protested. "It's not worth risking Jesse's life to protect that."

"It's my life," Jesse said, standing up. "That makes it my decision. I'm going back."

"At least wait for dinner," Mrs. Potter said. "Just in case."

"I can't," Jesse answered, sounding regretful. "Roberta's covering for me, and, well – there's only so long she can pretend I'm in her room."

Mrs. Potter's lips tightened and she looked away. Will felt his own lips twitching and tried to stop them. "Be safe," he said earnestly. "We'll be there in the morning." Actually, they'd be there well before morning. Both he and Anne had to find a place to hide before the sun came up. 

Jesse nodded solemnly and moved to the door. Just before he opened it, Will abruptly added, "Tell John –" He glanced over at Anne and Mrs. Potter, who were staring at him. Jesse was staring, too. Will sighed. "Tell him I'll see him soon." _And if he dies in the meantime,_ Will added to himself, _tell him I'll kill him._

There was much work to be done after Jesse left. Mrs. Potter hurried to put together a filling dinner and portable food for the next day while Will and Anne loaded the equipment they'd need next to the saddle hooks for Anne and Katie's horses. Despite looking positively exhausted, Clarence whinnied at them and Will took a second to pat him on the nose. "Don't worry, you'll be coming later," he murmured. "Mrs. Potter and Katie are riding in tomorrow." That had been a compromise: Mrs. Potter had wanted to stay and keep guard over the ranch and Will had wanted her to hide in the cave with Katie and the ranch's portable belongings.

Katie, who had been in the cellar for Jesse's visit and who was now supposed to be helping Mrs. Potter in the kitchen, was making a right nuisance of herself instead, staying so close to Will's side that he'd tripped over her more than once. After nearly breaking his ankle tripping over her yet again, he turned on her with the intention of shouting. Her wide, terrified eyes stopped him cold. "Oh, sweetie," he said quietly. He sighed and limped over to a hay bale, sitting down and holding open his arms. Katie wasted not a second scrambling onto his lap and curling up against his chest. Will wrapped his arms around her. "It's going to be okay," he said. "I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you."

Katie just huddled closer, clearly not convinced. 

~~~

Will tried to sleep that night, but even as tired as he was from previous sleepless nights and from his ride, he couldn't keep his eyes shut for more than a minute or two. When Mrs. Potter knocked on his door at three in the morning, Will was already dressed and ready. By three-thirty, he and Anne were riding to town, sticking to a trot in deference to Katie's horse, which really wasn't big enough to seat a full-grown man.

They arrived in town a little after four and Anne slipped off with her rifle and her bag of bullets, disappearing into the shadows. Will took both horses to the stable, stripped off their gear and hid it behind a pile of hay in the barn, and let the horses join the herd in the paddock.

The sky was just barely hinting at the coming dawn as Will made his way over to the telegraph office. As he expected, the door was locked. Will considered breaking one of the panes in the door but he was afraid that would be too visible from the boardwalk, so he snuck around the back of the building and tried the door there. He was fully prepared to break the lock if necessary, but fortunately the handle opened without resistance and he slipped inside.

Telegraph offices weren't terribly common in towns as small as Dead Horse; if it weren't for the brief silver rush that had driven the town to build four saloons, there probably wouldn't have been a telegraph office at all. As it was, the office was tiny, little more than six feet across and not quite ten feet back. The room was divided into two by a counter behind which the telegraph operator had stood. Back when Will was living in the town, the telegraph itself had been at the very back of the shop, where only the operator could touch it. Now, however, the telegraph was sitting on the front counter, which explained the open back door. If no one ever used it, they'd probably forgotten it wasn't locked.

Sliding down behind the counter, Will tucked himself in the corner. Fortunately, the counter itself was solid, but if anyone looked over the counter edge he'd be immediately visible. They were all gambling on Sutton not having a need to send a telegram before the day's duels.

With his life literally on the line, Will had thought that the next few hours would drag on endlessly. The long day before and the sleepless night caught up with him, however, and he'd barely slid to the floor before he was asleep.


	20. Chapter 20

He woke to the sounds of yelling. Startling upright, he managed to jab himself under his own chin with his shotgun before he realized where he was and why he was so uncomfortable. And uncomfortable he was: his back and neck both ached and his bad leg was teetering on the verge of seizing. If his life depended on him moving quickly in the next few hours, he might as well just give up now.

Not that he would give up, of course, because it wasn't just his life on the line. That thought in the front of his head, Will eased himself upright, putting most of his weight on his good leg as he peered over the top of the counter through the windows.

The first thing he saw was Sutton, sitting on his chair with Jacob Landon at his side and six hulking men surrounding him. Apparently, Sutton wasn't taking any chances and had pulled all of his Pinkertons around him. In some respects that was a good thing: if they managed survive this fight, Sutton would be completely finished. On the downside, they were even more hopelessly outnumbered than they had anticipated.

He forced that thought aside. Now wasn't the time for doubts, not if he had any hope of getting out of this situation alive. 

Looking beyond the Pinkertons, he saw that the crowd on the opposite side of the street was cheering, though not as loudly as he would've expected. Maybe they'd lost their taste for killing over the last few days.

Assured that everyone's focus was on the street and not on a tiny office that hadn't been open for months, Will slid up onto the top of the counter and eased back down on the other side. He thought he did fairly well considering his leg, but there was still a thump at the end and Will stayed crouched down near the floor, his heart pounding as he waited for the door to open and one of the Pinkertons to come investigating.

The door didn't open. Will let out a shaky breath and inched like a worm over to the window, keeping his weight entirely off his bad leg and being especially careful not to let the shotgun drag across the floor each time he lifted his right hand to move it forward.

Finally, finally, he reached the window. This close the crowd sounded much louder and his heart skipped a beat as, over the din of the onlookers, he heard Sutton counting down.

"Seven!"

Will pushed himself up onto his knees, ignoring the burn in his bad leg.

"Six!"

He tried to look out onto the street, but the damn Pinks were in the way and he couldn't see anything from this angle other than their backs.

"Five! Four!"

It took two precious seconds for Will to struggle to his feet, only to find that he could only see far enough down the street to see one of the fighters. It was Poor John.

"Three!"

Who was Poor John fighting? Would it be worse if it was John or Jesse?

"Two!"

_Please, let it not be John. Not John._

"One!"

Two shots rang out. There was a silent hush as Will stared so hard at Poor John that his eyes watered, looking for any sign of blood.

The crowd erupted in a roar and flooded out onto the street. Even the Pinkertons moved forward in interest, finally allowing Will a glimpse of the other end of the street, where Little John was lying in the dust, not moving.

Will flopped back against the wall, out of sight of anyone looking into the windows. John was safe. Jesse was safe. For a moment Will just reveled in the relief.

Then he realized what was coming next.

The next fifteen minutes were agony as Will faced the realization that John and Jesse were going to have to fight each other. John, the man Will loved. Jesse, a friend of over a decade. 

God, he wished they'd never come back to Dead Horse. The hell with Jesse and Mrs. Potter and the old sheriff and everyone else who Sutton had under his thumb. They could have stood up to Sutton. They could have fought back. They could have run away. They could have done many things, but they chose to stay and wait to be rescued.

Of course, Will could have chosen not to rescue them. He could have walked away. If he had, he knew John would have come with him and right now the two of them would be on their way back to Boston, enjoying the privacy of their own sleeper car and planning how they would go about finding Katie's family.

"One minute!"

Will moaned softly, pressing back against the wall and lifting his chin up to stare at the ceiling.

What made all of this so much worse was that Jesse would never be able to beat John in a fair gunfight. Unless Roberta and Suzie were helping him again – and Will would bet his last dollar that neither woman would betray John for Jesse – the outcome of this fight was predetermined. The horror was that Will couldn't even grieve for the outcome. A choice between John and Jesse was no choice at all.

Sutton began his countdown. Each number out of Sutton's mouth was like a blow and Will finally tucked his face into the corner of the room, not able to look as his lover killed his friend. 

Except that there was no gunshot.

"One!" Sutton said again, sounding annoyed.

Still, no gunshot.

Will frowned and shifted around so he could see out the window. Apparently the Pinkertons were much more interested in this fight than the last, because they were standing near the front of the boardwalk, giving Will a clear line of sight up and down the street. John and Jesse were both in position, staring at each other, but neither one drew his pistol.

" _One!_ " Sutton roared.

John and Jesse continued to stare at each other.

Jesse looked away first. "I withdraw."

John opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by Sutton's howl of outrage. "Withdraw? _Withdraw?_ This isn't a game, boy. You can't just show a yellow belly and walk away!" He stopped to heave a deep breath; when he spoke again, his voice was calmer. "No one is leaving this street until a duel has taken place."

By the end of Sutton's speech, Jesse's face was a bright, mottled red and as he reached for his gun he said: "You son of a –"

The Pinkertons lifted their rifles. "Enough talk," Sutton said flatly. "Fight, or my men will kill you."

Jesse's hand hesitated only a moment before it landed on the handle of his gun. "I don't take orders from you," he snarled and started to draw.

A gunshot rang out and Jesse's shoulder was suddenly gushing blood.

Will jerked his head back to look at the Pinkertons, but none of them had their rifles up to fire. He looked farther and found John standing in the middle of the street with his gun drawn. To someone who didn't know him, John's face probably looked like a blank mask, but Will knew John better than anyone else on earth and he could see what it cost him to stand his ground while the doctor ran out to Jesse.

" _Thank_ you," Sutton said. "It's good to know we have at least one professional here."

Will gritted his teeth and considered the merits of killing Sutton early. Only the knowledge that Anne might not be prepared stopped him.

The doctor looked up. "He'll be fine."

That was obviously a blatant lie; a cowboy wasn't much use without his shoulder. Still, he would live and for that Will was immensely grateful, even if it did put more pressure on Will and Anne; if Sutton survived the day, Will was quite sure that Jesse wouldn't live through the night.

Sutton shouted something about the final showdown, but Will ignored it as he sank down to the floor on weak knees. Jesse would make it, and John – John was safe. Poor John might be a dangerous fighter but Will knew that there was no gunman as good as John, as long as John was willing to fight.

That didn't mean that this fight was over. There was still Sutton and his men to consider. Will took a deep breath and cracked his shotgun open, being careful to be as silent as possible, though the crowd was still wandering about outside and making quite a bit of noise. Apparently there wasn't going to be a long wait till the next fight.

Just like the last time he checked, the shotgun was loaded with a shell in each of its two barrels. Said barrels had been shortened to the point that the entire gun looked more like a large pistol than a real shotgun. That meant the shot would scatter wide, making aim less important than speed. He'd only get two shots, though, so he'd have to make them count.

The cheering outside picked up. Will snapped the gun shut and eased up to look out the windows. Jesse was gone, with no sign of his presence but a large puddle of blood on the ground. Standing just a couple of feet back from the puddle was Poor John. Opposite him was the real John; as far as Will could tell, he hadn't moved an inch since he'd shot Jesse.

"You're early," Sutton called from his throne.

"Don't see much point in waiting," John said flatly.

Poor John shrugged. "I'm ready."

Sutton looked out over the crowd. Will did the same, and was interested to see a much more subdued group than at Jesse's fight. He felt a little bit better to know that they'd been cheering for a townsman to win, rather than just cheering for bloodshed.

Still, they made enough noise to make Sutton happy. "I am your servant," he said and he pulled out his watch. 

Will scowled and tightened his grip on the shotgun. It did no one any good if he jumped out early and got himself killed.

Apparently, the time had just passed a minute because Sutton announced, "Fifty seconds."

Will winced and distracted himself by taking in the logistics of Sutton and his men. Sutton himself was sitting farther back than he was before; far enough back that someone sitting on top of a building on the opposite side of the street probably couldn't hit him. Someone shooting from Roberta's room could possibly pull it off, but there was no way for Will to tell exactly where Anne was. Frankly, he'd be happy if she was already in her perch; it was a good forty minutes before they'd planned to be ready.

If she was on top of a building, she'd probably do better with the Pinkertons. All six of them had shifted to line the railing of the boardwalk, either because they had sensed the changing mood of the crowd or because they wanted a better view. Either way, they'd be easy pickings for a sharpshooter.

That meant that Will had to focus on Sutton. He'd planned on shooting the first shot through the window, being prepared to fire the second shot if the glass deflected the pellets too far, but as Sutton called the fifteen second mark, Will noticed that the lock of the office was merely a latch that could easily be lifted from the inside. He snuck a quick glance at the Pinkertons, all of whom appeared to be completely engrossed in the coming fight and decided to risk it. As Sutton called out "ten!", Will twisted the latch on the door and eased it open just enough so the latch wouldn't relock the door. A second later, he realized that hiding behind the door made him essentially blind so, after a moment of indecision, he opened the door just far enough that he could see out into the street. The angle of the door meant that all he could see was the tiny patch of dirt where John stood, the door framing his tall, fine figure. Will's heart lurched and he had to fight down an overwhelming wave of affection.

"Three!"

Will started and dragged his attention back to the situation at hand. He locked his eyes on John, ready to move forward the moment John pulled his gun.

"Two!"

First shot, Sutton. Second shot, the Pinkerton closest to Jacob. If Anne hadn't already brought down the rest, use the rifle as a club and –

"One!"

John's head exploded in a spray of blood.

For one long, endless moment, Will just stood there, frozen. No. _No_. John could not, could _not_ be dead. It just wasn't possible. Look, he was still on his feet, a gun in his hand. That meant he would be –

John crumpled to the ground.

Will slammed the door open and strode out, heading for the street. He barely looked at Sutton as he pointed the shotgun at his head and blew him away. The second shot went to the last standing Pinkerton; the rest were already in the process of falling. That was good, because Will had already dropped the gun and was jumping to the dirt of the street, limping as fast as he could in John's direction.

His mind raced as he ran, busily working up plans. They already had their wills written up, of course, but it would be easier for everyone if Will transferred the ranch and the endowment over to Mrs. Potter as soon as possible. She could take care of Jacob and, no matter how much she protested, Will was sure she'd be willing to take Katie in the end. The house would be sold and the rest of his assets liquidated for Tommy, who would hopefully be back from his Canadian trip so that Will could say goodbye, though of course Will would have to be careful to not make Tommy suspicious –

"You son of a bitch," Will breathed, almost sobbed, as he fell to his knees at John's side. Close up, the damage didn't look as bad; John's head was still intact, if nothing else, though blood was pumping out of it at such a rate that the skull's integrity seemed like a small blessing.

A person knelt down next to him and tried to move his hands away. Will was about to lash out when at the last second he recognized the doctor and pulled his punch to the side. "What are you doing?"

"Saving his life, I hope," the doctor said.

Will's eyes burned. "He got shot in the head, doc. I don't think there's anything you can do."

"Sometimes men get lucky," the doctor said, pressing a white cloth to John's wound. "Hold this."

Will held the cloth tight and gripped John's shoulder with his free hand. "Lucky?"

"If the bullet hits at just the right angle, it sometimes deflects off the skull." The doctor pulled out a syringe and injected something into John's neck. "Okay, let's get him up and into my office before he bleeds out here in the street."

Will immediately put his arms under John's shoulders and tried to stand up, but his leg had had a very bad couple of days and decided that now was the time to stop working. Will cursed in frustration as he fell back, only to watch several people, people from town that he once knew, step forward to pick John up and carry him away.

His view of John's departing body was interrupted by a hand held out in front of him. Will frowned and his eyes followed the hand up the arm to a familiar face. "Come on, Will. Let's get you up."

"Roberta?"

"That's right. Come on, now."

Roberta helped Will to his feet. He twisted a bit in the process, which often happened when he tried to stand up on just one leg, and he ended up facing down the street away from the doctor's office. There was a body lying there in the dirt. "Is that Poor John?"

"If you mean is that the guy John just beat, then yes. It was an amazing shot. They fired at exactly the same time."

Will nodded, but long before she'd finished speaking his attention had turned away. He vaguely heard Roberta sigh. "Come on," she said. "Let's get you to John."

The doctor's office was in the same place as Doc Smithson's office had been. The inside was very different, however: the giant tank of leeches was gone, as were the hand-knitted afghans draped over the sitting room chairs and the bowl of boiled candies on the counter. The furniture was familiar though, and while the room looked a little bare without the amenities, everything was spotlessly clean and well-maintained. "I think John's in the back," Roberta said gently.

Will immediately went for the back door, not bothering to see if Roberta was following him. The door was not locked – which was fortunate as if it had been, Will would have had to break it down – and the space beyond was much as Will had remembered it from the time or two that he'd brought Tommy and Molly in. To the left was the exam and surgical room, with its high table and large windows covered with netting that let in light but retained the patient's privacy. Like the office area, the exam room was devoid of Smithson's personal touches and looked far cleaner than it had in the past.

To the right was the recovery area, with three beds. Each bed was covered with a quilt that looked like the basic quilts that the local women sold in the general store. All three beds were occupied.

Will shifted his attention back to the surgical room and, without bothering to ask permission, strode in the open door. The doctor barely looked up from where he was stitching the gash on John's head. "I'd tell you to go away, but the last time I tried that the gentleman threatened to shoot me."

"I'm not going to shoot you," Will said. "But I'm not leaving."

The doctor just nodded and went back to his sewing.

"Is he awake?"

"No, but that's to be expected between the morphine and the brain contusion. For now we wait. If he doesn't wake up in a few hours, we'll have to consider other options." The doctor tied off the last stitch and carefully applied a gauze pad to the wound, though he didn't use anything to tie it down. "For now, someone should stay with him –"

"I will," Will said immediately.

"I thought you'd say that," the doc said dryly. "There's a chair in the corner. You can talk to him, but don't touch the gauze. I'm going to check on my other patients."

Will nodded absently, only keeping track of the doctor's movements to the extent that he waited till the man was out of the room before taking John's hand in his own. "Hey, John," he murmured. "I'm here."

"So'm I."

Will tensed, then relaxed. "Hey Roberta," he said, without turning around. It hardly mattered, as Roberta came around to the other side of the table and took John's free hand in both of hers.

"I won't stay long," she said, speaking to Will, but looking at John. For a moment Will thought he caught a glimpse of intense longing on her face, but a second later it was gone and he decided that it'd just been his imagination. 

Roberta squeezed John's hand tightly, then let go. "I just wanted to tell you that Mrs. Potter is telling anyone who'll listen that John here is Charles Merriweather."

"The third," Will murmured, blinking rapidly.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Will said, louder. "What about Jacob Landon?"

"I don't know," Roberta admitted. "He wasn't among the bodies, but I don't know where he is now."

Will sighed, but didn't let go of John's hand. "Mrs. Potter will find him."

"I'm sure she will," Roberta said wryly. "She seems to be the keeper of traumatized children today."

"Katie's safe?"

"She is, as are Suzie and Anne. Anne's already gone, though; she went back to the ranch."

"Probably for the best. The law is coming."


	21. Chapter 21

In fact, it took the law nearly three more days to reach Dead Horse. By that point, John was awake, though he was prone to long naps that ate up the majority of each day and he was sleeping though the night as well.

In those first few anxious hours before John woke for the first time, Will had gone into the recovery room to check on Jesse. Jesse had been pale but awake, and in surprisingly good spirits. "Thank John for me, when he wakes up."

"For shooting you?" Will asked.

"For saving my life."

Will smiled, and nodded. "What did the doc say about your shoulder?"

"That I'm damn lucky," Jesse said wryly. "The bullet went through without hitting bone. Few weeks and I'll be good as new." He cleared his throat. "Thank John for that, too, will you?"

"Of course," Will said. "If he ever wakes up."

"He will," Jesse said with comforting confidence. "He's a stubborn bastard."

"Ain't that the truth," Roberta said.

Will looked over his shoulder to find Roberta looking at Jesse with a small smile on her face and a light expression in her eyes. Will smothered a smile of his own and went back to watch over John.

There he found Mrs. Potter and Katie waiting for him. Katie had launched herself at Will and he'd scooped her right up into a bear hug. "I'm so glad to see you, sweetie."

He felt a tiny head nodding against his neck, and his shoulder got suspiciously damp as Katie clung to him with surprising force for a child her age. Eventually he shifted over to sit on the chair, holding Katie the entire time. "She was frantic," Mrs. Potter said, which was unnecessary but still tugged at Will's heartstrings. "I promised her she could visit for a few minutes while I tell you what's been happening in town."

Will's attention jerked away from Katie. "What's been happening in town?"

"First of all, as Roberta told you, the town believes that John is Charles Merriweather and that Katie is his niece. Charles heard that his niece was the only survivor of a wagon fire and came to pick her up and the two of you decided that if you'd come this far, you might as well visit the ranch that he founded. When you arrived, you heard about the tournament and Charles, having always wanted to try a duel, signed up. Since he wanted to be anonymous and since there were already five people signed up as John Anderson, he did so as well."

Will stared at her, impressed. "And Sutton and his men?"

"Shot by an unnamed Mexican who immediately left town. Folks think that he might have been related to the Mexican brothers who died earlier in the tournament. As for the Pinkertons, one was killed by the Mexican. The rest were killed by a man with a rifle from across the street. Fortunately I saw the man and would be able to describe him, if necessary. He looked remarkably like the Smith brothers who both died in the tournament.

"A bit of a coincidence that both men decided to strike at the same time," Will murmured.

"They were waiting for the tournament to end," Mrs. Potter assured him. "And I have two women who can corroborate my story, a couple of prostitutes that the Mexican and Mr. Smith availed themselves of before their attack on the sheriff and his men."

"What about the bodies?"

"Already being buried in a mass grave outside of town." Off Will's appalled look, she added, "We didn't have room for them in the cemetery and we couldn't risk leaving them in town. As anyone from the surrounding area could tell you, we've recently overcome an outbreak of typhoid fever."

"You are amazing," Will said, awed. "Have you ever considered running for mayor?"

"Oh, come now," Mrs. Potter said, sounding flustered. "Who would ever think to vote for a woman mayor?"

"Apparently a town in Kansas," Will said. "Twenty years ago. I remember there being a fuss about it when Molly and I first came west."

"Oh," Mrs. Potter said again, in a different tone. "But what about the ranch?"

Will sighed. "I don't know. The boys are all gone and, for all we know, the buildings as well. Jesse's hurt and I don't care what the doc says, I don't know that his shoulder's going to be up for ranch work. And I don't even know what's going to happen to Grady's ranch, but from what you've told me it's bigger than ever. I wouldn't be surprised if the new owner starts pushing you to sell."

Mrs. Potter considered that. "Who's to say the new owner of the Grady ranch might not be Mr. Merriweather?"

Will just buried his face in Katie's hair and laughed.

It was the middle of the night when John finally awoke. Mrs. Potter and Katie had long since left to find accommodations at the hotel for the night and Will was attempting to find a comfortable enough position in his chair for sleep when he heard the moan. Instantly he was on his feet by the bed. "John?"

"Will?"

Will's eyes welled up and this time he didn't try to blink the tears away as he took John's hand in both of his own. "It's so good to hear your voice."

John blinked at his captured hand, then slowly turned his eyes about the room. Blearily he asked, "What happened?"

"You were shot," Will said, with a slightly hysterical laugh. "In the head."

There was a long pause. "In the head?"

"Yeah. But don't worry, the doc said you'll be fine." 

John blinked some more, stared at Will for a few seconds, then closed his eyes again. His breath immediately evened out into the slow, familiar rhythms of his sleep and Will stumbled back to his chair, exhausted but feeling lighter in spirit than he had in weeks.

~~~

"This is healing quite well," the doctor – whose name was apparently Dr. Daniels, but who was permanently named Doc in Will's mind – said as he peered at Katie's scar.

Katie stoically endured the touch, though she was shooting glares in Will's direction. Will stuck his tongue out at her in return and she surprised all of them – possibly even herself – by giggling.

Doc smiled down at her and released the hair that he'd been holding back. It fell forward again, covering a chunk of the scar. "Pity you weren't close enough to a hospital for immediate treatment, though – a skin graft might've reduced the scarring for the second degree burns around the edges."

"Skin graft?" John asked from his bed in the recovery room. He was the only one left in the room, with Jesse having gone back to the ranch the day before. Roberta and Mrs. Potter had gone with him, presumably to do their best to mother hen him to death.

"It's really quite fascinating," Doc said enthusiastically. "You start with very thin strips of animal skin, preferably from some place close to the bone, like a chicken's wing –"

John listened avidly as Doc explained the process. Will and Katie exchanged a glance and, without a word, headed for the door. "Ready for lunch?" Will asked her once they reached the boardwalk.

Katie shook her head vigorously.

"Yeah, me either," Will said with a wrinkled nose. "Let's go check on Suzie, then."

Suzie was the last remaining member of their conspiracy still in town, with the rest, including Jacob Landon, having returned to the thankfully still-standing ranch. Jacob was a bit of a touchy subject for everyone in town, as far as Will could see, with half of the town horrified for him and feeling guilty for not having done anything to save him, and the other half angered and bitter at the way Jacob had been so obviously favored by Sutton and the undeniable fact that Sutton had killed the Landon family just to get his hands on him. The end result was such a conflicting, ugly mess of tensions that when the US Marshals had finally ridden into town, the only story they didn't seem to buy was the completely true one of what happened to the Landon family and to Jacob Landon. In the end, however, no one was accusing Jacob of personally hurting his family and everyone else who might've been involved in the killings was dead and the Marshals let the entire matter go. Truth be told, they seemed far more interested in the actions of the Pinkertons; Will had gotten the distinct impression that there was bad blood there.

Much of this information had come from Suzie herself; she'd opted to continue plying her trade even after the law came to town and had been their eyes and ears into the subsequent investigation. Will was grateful for the information, but was equally grateful when Suzie agreed to retire once the Marshals had gone. These days, she spent most of her time in Herrod's, somehow managing to win extravagantly at faro without making enemies.

In the end, everything had turned out as well as it could have. Dead Horse was free and was, in Will's opinion, very likely to be electing a new female mayor in the next few weeks. John and Jesse were both on the mend and the doc was confident that both would have full recoveries. Katie and Jacob were alternating between being each other's greatest friend and worst enemy, which was highly entertaining to everyone except Mrs. Potter, who was completely exasperated at them both. Roberta and Suzie were both more open and happier than Will had ever seen before, and Roberta was flirting shamelessly with Jesse. That might be a problem, except for the fact that both of them knew that she'd be leaving town soon. They seemed to be making the most of the time they had left.

As for Will, now that it was all over and everyone had survived, he had come around enough to be glad that they had undertaken this trip. Still, as he and Katie walked down a boardwalk still stained with blood, he made a private vow to himself that he and his would never, ever step foot in Dead Horse again.


	22. Chapter 22

"Wow," Davy said, his eyes wide as he looked through the window into the garage. "What's it called?"

"An Oldsmobile," Billy said expertly. He smirked at Tim and Joey. "I got to ride in it once."

Davy looked suitably impressed. "Do you think I can ride in it someday?"

Billy scoffed. "You've only been in the neighborhood for a week! Why would they let you ride in it?"

Davy nodded wistfully. "It's real pretty, though."

"You should hear it when it runs," Billy said. "It's _noisy_."

All four boys sighed and pressed their noses to the windows.

"Back, I see."

The boys jumped back to see a tall, lanky man with smiling green eyes. Billy recovered first. "Hi, Mr. Connors. I was just showing Davy the car."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," Mr. Connors said dryly. He shifted to the side, revealing a girl wearing a white dress, with her hands hidden behind her back. She was maybe a year or two older than Billy, but it was hard to tell with the way she hunched her shoulders like that. "I'd like you to meet Mr. Merriweather's niece, Katie. She'll be staying with us from now on."

The boys stared at her. "Hi," Joey offered.

The girl stayed silent. "Say hello, Katie," Mr. Connors said gently.

The girl lifted her head a fraction. "Hello," she said softly, but none of the boys noticed.

"What's wrong with your face?" Tim asked. Billy looked over at him with a mixture of exasperation and awe.

"Hey –" Mr. Connors started to say, but before he could say anything further, the girl pulled one hand forward from behind her back and flung the contents of that hand right into Tim's face.

Everyone stared at the now mud-splattered Tim. Mr. Connors looked especially shocked. "Katie!"

"What's wrong with your face?" she jeered at Tim.

Mr. Connors gaped at her. 

Tim wiped at the mud, more spreading it around than wiping it away. He grinned. "I'm so going to get you for that." With a war cry, he launched himself after her. She shrieked and ran away, though somehow she never got so far away that Tim didn't have any chance of catching her. Billy exchanged looks with the other boys, then started after her as well.

Will stared at the children, completely flabbergasted. When the four boys caught Katie, he stepped forward to intervene, but stopped again when she kicked one of them in the shin, pulled her arm away from the other and started running again, laughing.

She was laughing.

Will swallowed past a suddenly thick throat. "Billy," he called out.

The boy stopped and looked over questioningly.

"No blood, no broken bones, and no playing in the streets."

Billy just nodded and ran after Katie again.

Will shook his head and watched for a moment longer before forcing himself to turn around and head back into the house. As he walked, he thought about the small pile of bones they'd seen in the smoking remains of Katie's family's wagon. Maybe she'd had a little brother.

He found John waiting anxiously by the door. "How'd it go?"

"They asked her what was wrong with her face," Will said helplessly. "At which point, she threw mud at one of them and asked what was wrong with his face."

"She spoke?" John asked, wistfully.

Will felt a pang and reached out to grip John's shoulder. "I think it's easier for her around other children." She'd gotten along well with Jacob Landon, too.

"Maybe," John said. He sighed, then made a visible effort to cheer up. "She threw mud at them?"

"Right in the face," Will said. "I'm starting to fear what Roberta's teaching those girls at her school."

"You teach at that school!"

"Only math," Will said defensively. "I'm only over there three hours a week. I think Anne spends more time teaching them how to shoot than I spend teaching them their sums."

"I think Anne just wants to spend as much time away from the brothel as possible, now that Suzie's hired a bodyguard."

"I'm surprised she didn't hire one sooner," Will commented. "It's not like she couldn't afford it."

"I'm sure there was a reason. Suzie's far better at business than you or I'll ever be."

Will acknowledged that statement, then awkwardly cleared his throat. "Are you still ..."

"Visiting Suzie in the brothel?" John asked dryly. "Yes. Though all we've done is had coffee and cookies in her bedroom."

"I know," Will said quickly. "I just wish you didn't have to keep up the pretense."

"It's better than courting random society women," John said with a shrug. "Though Roberta's pushing me to squire her around. She seems to think she'll have more luck drumming up funding for a forward-thinking girls' school if she has a man on her arm."

"If she'd just stop being so stubborn, we could fund that school."

"Keep telling her that, Will. Maybe someday you'll get her to listen."

Will glared at him, but without much heat and after a moment he turned to peek out the window. Katie and the boys still seemed to be having fun. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "Mrs. Bowden has the day off."

John stilled. "Mrs. Dora is out doing the shopping."

"Katie's occupied for the time being."

They looked at each other with twitching lips. "I bet I can beat you to the bedroom," John said.

"Sucker's bet," Will said, but he ran for the stairs anyway. He stumbled on his way up and John caught him by the waist, helping him up the rest of the way. Will laughed and wrapped his arms around John's shoulders, pulling him into a long kiss, full of promise. Will wasn't sure how much alone time they had left, but he planned to make the most of every second.


End file.
